Why This Streamer Chose Authenticity Over Religious Labels

Welcome in, everybody, to Control-Alt-Redeem.

working to reset the culture and redeem the space and today i get the privilege of having katie bug vt on the program with me welcome in katie hi it's a pleasure to be here And we've got a bunch of people already in the chat. Welcome in, River, Elaine Light, Fedorable Will. It is going to be fun. I just have that feeling. We've already been chatting a little bit before we got started, and I was trying to make sure we were paying attention so we didn't just keep talking and forget to go live. So welcome in, everybody.

Yeah, yeah, that is wise.

I was talking about earlier, before we started, that the last time I had someone on that was not physically present, and I put all of the data in there to go and edit and do all of that, it blocked out the first half hour of the podcast because it didn't see any lips moving, which is really a weird thing to me. The AI sometimes is so smart, it's not very smart.

It's so smart, it's dumb.

I know. Well, you know what? It kind of reminds me at times of different friends I had that like they might be close to a four point back in the day. They were really smart. One of them was a friend of my dating, my best friend, I should say. And she kept talking about, look at all those deer over in the field over there. Look at all those deer. And nobody could figure out what deer she was talking about. And we finally figured out she was talking about all the cows that were out in the field.

I love that.

I don't know why a high schooler had no idea what a cow was, but it wasn't that she was not smart. There was just something hilarious about that that I've never forgotten.

Were they brown cows at least or no? know i don't remember they might have been brown cows they might have been brown cows and and we shouldn't give her such a hard time but uh okay my high school did a thing where they went around asking people if they knew what a pipeline was like because like we had people come into our school and put a bunch of flags all over the ground so they're like do you know why those flags are there

Oh.

And hearing some of those answers were hilarious.

Oh, I bet.

It's like, oh boy.

Sorry, that just reminds, and I love how we could start the conversation anywhere and just go, but it reminds me of like where they would go ask elementary school kids and the question would be there and all the answers would be in the newspaper when you live in a small town to go interview. Like, there's a post that goes around, so you probably can find this, of an elementary kid that's going on with this really existential answer about what worries you in life. And then the next kid is like, what worries me is that kid.

I saw a meme about that basically today, except it was like two streamers in chat worried about the two streamers. They were both having like existential crises in different directions.

Oh, okay. Okay. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, that could happen all over the place. But anyway, by the way, if you are here live today, the intro... for season two has gone live today on spotify so i know everybody listening to this on the vod later that means nothing to you other than you can go watch and listen to all of this on spotify so once a week one of the podcasts will go live i will gradually after we're going to work on getting it in other places besides spotify when those other places are up and ready to go hopefully we'll be on other platforms besides spotify and youtube to watch the vods or just you know binge listen to while you're doing other things so it's it's i'm pretty excited about that honestly yeah you should be that's exciting yeah Well, I had no idea when I started last year because, like, at this point last year, I had no plans on doing a podcast. So it came about probably around March, April, the idea for it. So I haven't even been doing it a year. And initially I said, I know that statistically, if you don't make it to five episodes or sorry, 10 episodes, your podcast probably is not going to last. So I'm like, until I get 10 episodes in the bag, I don't want to publish it anywhere. We'll just do it live. If it works, it works. We'll keep going. I hope I'm a whole lot better now than I was a year ago in that. You're going to leave a five-star review on Spotify. Dude, dude, I love it. I love it. So the first full episode will be out next week, and then there'll be one episode a week dropping. Like I said, once I get the other platforms available besides Spotify and YouTube, then I'm going to start dropping the 35 episodes from season one. So that's going to be fun.

That is cool.

But also, I don't think I'm going to run out of guests anytime soon. I have all my friends.

I don't think so.

All my friends from Reach Conference. I've got all my friends from all the other places that I know people online in Taco and in Hopeful Disasters and in DC4C. I've had all kinds of people on. So it's like unless I stop meeting people, which is highly unlikely. unless i stop meeting people i already have enough people to do the podcast once a week for the next five years i think so dang it's probably just though convincing some of them to be on the podcast will be the difficulty getting them to come in and to share and to talk or schedule issues but yeah

I can see scheduling being a thing.

Yeah, I do have one thing I want to reveal at the end of the podcast of a teaser that just was a thought in my mind this week. And so I want to tease that for people at the end of it. So I love doing this, like a little teaser. And I'm not even going to talk about it. I'll remember at the end, hopefully. And you won't get to the end.

I'll remind you, hopefully.

Yeah, you won't get to the end of two and a half hours and go, what did you even tell me about? I listened this whole time and I heard nothing. But it is so good to have you on here, Katie Bug. I like to always start with where and how did you get introduced to the platform Twitch? What was that experience like? And then if that is different, then how did you decide to get started as a Twitch streamer? Because some people start all at the same time. Some people, there's a time gap between there. And then if there's also a time gap between being a streamer and intentionally being a christian streamer in the space uh what that decision was so you know i just leave it open-ended tell me what you want if if there's something intriguing i might interrupt and uh ask you about it or i'll come back to it later so no no um so i found about twitch to a friend who was watching a streamer named ben smash at the time um i don't know if he's still around

But so that's how I found Twitch. And then I started like following all these different people. At the time it was horror because I was like into like Dead by Daylight and things like that. And so that went on. And then the pandemic hit. I was laid off of work, had all this money, had a ton of video games. And I'm like, I bet I could be a streamer too. And so then I started streaming. in 2020 and I started playing, I started with like horror games because that's what I watched. That's what I like. I'm like, oh, you can make it big as a horror streamer. And I started with just my a webcam my brother gave me and a little computer that was like seven hundred dollars because it was on sale. And I was like, let's give this a go. And then a friend introduced me from prayers from Abigail. Oh, yes.

I remember.

i was like what is this like she has a model what is that and um at the time like when i started as a streamer i wasn't a christian streamer like i would occasionally talk about god and like be like yeah i love jesus like you know like he's cool like if you want me to read the bible i can do that but like i'm a christian who makes content not a christian content creator And then I found Abby and I started really watching her and how she did it. And it was an inspiration to me to figure out how I can do what I do and also influence a space while loving Jesus. And then I was like, oh, I should try this VTubing thing. And then I did that like a year later on my anniversary.

Were you doing VTube and still doing horror?

Um, for a little bit, um, when I switched to VTB, I started to do like a lot of Genshin Impact, like Final Fantasy. So like lots of like gacha and RPGs and otome games. So Japanese romance novels with, I have to specify it's a Japanese romance novel with a female protagonist who romances men.

Okay.

An otome game is not a visual novel and a visual novel is not always an otome game.

And I don't know any of those.

That is okay.

Yeah. Yeah. The romance novel thing has never been in my wheelhouse.

I've been playing a tell me game since I was in high school. So, yeah.

I could definitely see, you know, the appeal because romance novels have had appeal for a long time. yeah it would it would make sense that uh those would in some way find their way to move into video game genre somewhere yeah it's a lot of fun and so i've been doing it ever since Cool. So I like how you distinguish with a streamer who is a Christian, not a Christian streamer. And I think that's an important distinction. And I think you could be on either side of that category.

And there's nothing wrong with that. Even today, as a streamer who is a Christian, not a Christian streamer. For a while, I was classifying myself as a Christian streamer and actually had more issues. when i was classifying myself as a christian streamer um because of some of the games that i play people like that's not godly and i'm like it's a guy it's a video game like not every tv show you watch is godly either okay that doesn't mean i don't love jesus yeah that that's a whole separate side thing but it's we actually yeah we could actually go down that trail for for a little bit there because

I've had other people on the podcast, too, that are in that realm of horror or other areas where there is a classification that people will put and say that you can't be a Christian and do that. And I don't think that I mean, I should say I think there are things that absolutely that is true. But I also think that there are some things that are neither good nor bad. They are neutral. And for some people, it might be OK. And for other people, it may not be OK. yeah and and to classify everything that's not okay for you as not okay for any christian uh just how are you going to then reach the people that are in that realm in that sphere that are are doing that you know like i remember this is totally unrelated but i remember having a christian biker association come to my church and a bunch of other people in the community were all upset because christians can't be bikers it was like these are all people that formerly were well not all but many of them were formerly in biker gangs they came to christ they will still had bicycles they still wanted to go and ride they wanted to not look no longer be in the community they were in so they created their new community with other like-minded people and it was like we know this culture we're redeeming this culture and we're going to redeem the space and when you just say no you can't be christian and do that it's like you're leaving a whole bunch of people outside of what christians can be

I knew there was a church back in Minnesota when I lived there that was a church geared at bikers where like the pastor would literally, he had a ramp up onto the stage where he would ride his bike up onto the stage. And I was a teenager when I heard this and I was like really legalistic and snooty hooty. i was like no that's like not honoring god and then like now i'm like 30 and i'm like brah no that's so cool like there's also a church in new orleans that like meets upstairs uh like the downstairs of the bar and the upstairs is like a worship center and so many people have been like set free and redeemed because this man had a calling to make a bar to introduce people to jesus

Oh, yeah. And there's many other avenues and many other places. What really is, like, something I wouldn't, like, when I started in seminary, I would not have expected this. Let me put it that way. So, you know, like, 2001 is, oh, I got to follow.

LPXXX9001 just followed.

Thank you for the follow, IPXXX9001. I don't know if that's the right way to say it, but welcome in. Thank you for the follow.

Welcome.

So I would not have had expectation that pastors would have tattoos. And I don't mean from the standpoint of you couldn't be redeemed, already have tattoos, and become a pastor. But the number of pastors I know, all of them younger than me for the most part, who went through seminary and then in seminary or around there or while they were in Bible college, they went and got Bible verses tattooed on them. I love that. And it's like I have no problem with it, but it's like the strictness of the era that I grew up in, it's like – Oh, my goodness. The number of people that would be opposed to this outright, just from you can't be a pastor and have a tattoo. So it's like. We are always, the Christians are, always the one who are putting the box around God and putting the box around other people and pointing the finger and saying, you can't do that and be a Christian. And it seems like the Pharisees kept pointing the finger at Jesus and saying, you can't love God and do all those things you're doing and hang out with those people you're hanging out with.

Yeah. It's kind of like how, while you were talking about on your stream earlier about systematic theology. Oh yeah. And how it doesn't, it doesn't always work because then you're trying to tie things together. I think that happens too with like the laws in the Old Testament and bringing, trying to bring them into today. It's a lack of like actual, like understanding of what's going on in the text. And they're trying to make all these things work together that don't work together because there were like relevance.

Yeah, and that's what a lot of the debates that Jesus ran into were all around is the interpretation of the law. When you have two things that are opposed to each other, which one wins? You know, is love your neighbor as yourself win or does obey the Sabbath win? Because if your neighbor's donkey falls in a well or in the ditch or in a hole, can you help it get out on Sunday or do you leave it trapped in there? If you find your neighbor's livestock roaming around your field on the Sabbath day, can you return it or do you let it eat your field? What do you do and not do? The problem, I think, on some level, this is the way I usually try to phrase it, is we want to just have a checkbox of yes and no. And the problem is life is about wisdom. What do you do in this circumstance? And what do you do in that circumstance? I've constantly tried to use that phrasing with my kids, not of, is this right or wrong? What's the wise thing to do in this circumstance?

that's wise i have no other words that's inspiring though in all honesty as someone who wants to have kids one day uh rather than teaching them what right and wrong teach them wisdom like proverbs teaches seek wisdom and you're like she'll lead you right and i'm just like yeah

Yeah, and it's not that, like, some things aren't always wrong, okay? There are things that are always wrong. We don't usually have a problem with things that are always wrong. What we usually have a problem with is all those things that are life, that are gray areas, that maybe it's okay, maybe it's not okay. How do I make decisions around this? And if all you know is check the box, you end up doing the right thing for the wrong reasons, or you do the wrong thing for the right reasons. And it's really a difficult thing to do.

yeah it's like i i had a conversation once when i was in bible school uh that there are commandments in the bible that we're supposed to follow and then there's personal convictions and your personal convictions are not my personal convictions and you cannot force them upon me just like i will not force mine upon you but i'll try to honor yours if you make them known like on like tv shows or like video games and things like that but You can't like I went through this season where people constantly force their personal convictions on me. So I couldn't do a lot of what I loved because there was always conflict and fighting about it. And I'm just like, yeah, there is such a thing as being too legalistic and taking things to extreme.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. And adorable. Will's just jumping in here with as well as there's a difference between being sinful and being unwise is an important distinction to learn.

Yes. We talked about that a bit last night.

Oh, did you? Yeah. You were just on his podcast last night. I was. I got to go back and find that episode once it comes out and listen to it. I was not able to be there.

It's okay. It was an interesting conversation.

Yeah, I'm still going back and listening to the conversation I had with him, and I've been posting a few things this week from it. It's like, oh, man, we had some really good conversations.

Yeah, I was there for part of your conversation. Well, not all of it. I want to go back and finish it, but I did like what I heard. I was like, oh, this is so cool.

Yeah, yeah. I love the approach. This thing is like he will eventually be on this podcast. I'm convinced. I don't know when. We'll get to do that. yes i'm here for it but it's like just the the way that he approaches his questions are so good that's what i that's what i want to say i love about fedorable will is the way he frames his questions he caught me a couple of times in the framing of questions because it's like i was going to answer one way and you framed the question a little bit differently and i went oh i was ready to answer this way you framed it that way i have to pause and think and i actually think i'm going to answer it differently just because of how you framed it So that was really fun. So if you haven't listened to that podcast, go find it wherever Fedorable Will is at. It'll be there. yes go listen do it just not right now finish this friend yeah finish this first finish this first um oh i know like we were just talking about those those rules and guidelines and the difference between check marks and not check marks so yeah i all of a sudden remembered an event in my life i have not thought about in years i don't like i don't even know last time i thought about this The strictness of things. My parents got divorced when I was 12 or 13, whatever it was. My dad got remarried within a year. I would go visit him and get up on Sunday, play video games before church, and then go to church. And then all of a sudden, it was, you cannot watch TV and you cannot play video games before we go to church.

Interesting.

All right.

Do you know why?

No. They just, it's Sabbath and you can't play or something that was a long nose. It's so long ago, I don't remember. But it was like, well, then there's no reason for me to get out of bed. So I would just lay in bed until a half an hour before we had to go to church and then get up. And it was like, why don't you get up? Because you took away everything I can do. Why would I get up and sit in a chair and be bored and have nothing to do? When I can lay in bed and be bored. When I can just lay in bed and be bored, exactly. So I'm not getting up. But it's one of those funny things where, yeah, something was OK. And then for whatever rational reason or strictness reason, I don't know if I don't remember. And I wasn't there every week. So the pastor could have been preaching on something and they took it to heart. They tried to apply it and be a good parent. I'm not discrediting that. I'm just saying at times I'm going to respond and react a certain way. And and that was one of those times where it was.

hey you can't play video games on sunday uh okay then i won't get up i'll stay in bed yeah i yeah i can't exactly relate to that because like my parents were kind of my mom divorced my mom and dad divorced when i was six um and then he stopped coming around really when i was 12. so my mom like had other guys in and out uh she she's been married like four or five times and so there was like different rules of strictness but she was pretty loose on what she allowed us to watch because Spongebob we weren't allowed to watch Spongebob that's funny I could watch horror movies I could watch rated R movies I could watch like all these other things but Spongebob was a no go

That's so funny. Because there were things that I didn't let my kids watch. They didn't understand necessarily why. But SpongeBob was fine by me. It's like, it's silly. It's ridiculous. Yeah, it's so dumb.

It's so dumb.

But I didn't let them watch Dragon Ball Z. And so my... daughter did not understand why i didn't let them watch that so her husband one time was questioning me about that thinking it was for religious reasons and i'm like no she had two brothers that like to fight i was not going to have them watching a cartoon that was fighting and going to escalate fighting so no it was it was strictly around are my kids going to watch this and model what they see? And it's going to come out in fighting. So it was like, no, all of those anime that we're fighting, it was like, no, they're not going to.

Yeah, half of the anime back then was just fighting, like Naruto, Inuyasha, DBZ. It's funny because the twin and I, Elaine, grew up watching WWE, which is World Wide Entertainment. Oh, the shenanigans we got up to. i remember there was one time we had a bunch of friends over and we were all like play fighting and some one of us thought it was a good idea to jump over the back of the couch and the couch fell backwards i think on to one of the kids is how my mom tells the story oh my goodness and i was like well maybe yeah i don't know when you have like a bunch of girls who like because we have an older brother and so he liked to fight we like to play fight our friends like to play fight Probably not why I was watching a bunch of shows teaching us how to fight.

Yeah. And it depends, too. You know, I mean, I grew up with a lot of different things and watched a lot of stuff my parents didn't know I watch. But that was early back when cable was brand new. And all they knew was, you know, three channels. Well, we got cable. There's lots of stuff. So they didn't know what was on, you know. But you would hear at school what was on, and you'd go explore and find whatever, you know, latest, greatest thing was out there. And watching, you know, Jean-Claude Van Damme and, you know, Rambo and whatever those movies were coming out that were, like, they're not kid-friendly. And we were all watching them. We're all watching those in middle school.

Oh yeah, I would say the good old days, but like being where I'm at now in life, I don't want to be overly rigorous with my kids, but I do want to shelter my kids as someone who wasn't sheltered and also teach them how to navigate situations. because the reality of it is they're going to be exposed to things. All I can do is hopefully teach them how to navigate the situations wisely and try to prevent them from... My mom's theory at my house was, well, you're going to see it somewhere, so you might as well see it at home. I don't I don't love that theory because then I was exposed to a ton of stuff and had a ton of struggles. At the same time, it's like, hey, let's have a conversation of what you could potentially see, like at a friend's house or like, you know, if you're like out and about, like the music you might hear if you go to a Walmart and things like that.

Right. Well, and I think that's also for a kid. I don't know if it was effective or not, but this in my mind makes sense. If rather than say we don't believe in doing that or we think it's right or wrong, if you just come from the standpoint of I don't think that's a wise thing for me to do. It's a much more defensible thing for a kid to hold on to and their friends to not attack them for not going along with other people, you know.

yeah i heard a there's this uh pastor that listened to his name is james he's over in the uk but um there was one time his kid was like out playing with like older kids and he came home swearing he's like hey we're like the dad's like where did he learn to say that he's like oh my new friends he's like i think it's unwise for you to hang out with them if you're gonna start talking like that because that's not like appropriate language and so once he was a little bit uh like a couple of weeks later or so he went out and his friends were like, why aren't you hanging out with us anymore? He's like, it's unwise because I don't want to swear. The swearing isn't cool. I cheered for that kid.

Oh, yeah. That sounds really awesome to be able to think through it that way. Like I said, you get ownership that way, too.

Yeah.

Is this a wise thing for me to do or not do? Also, you know, instead of saying the, well, if all your friends jumped off the bridge, would you? Well, maybe. What bridge are we talking about? And what are the rewards for jumping off the bridge? you know i there's some does the bridge have a rope like is it a rope are we bungee jumping off of them like i need a little more information here mom right before i yeah i could give you an answer maybe maybe is the correct answer until i have more information Friends jump off bridge? Where?

That's me loving those. Like, where? What are we doing? Why?

Supersonic, is the water frozen? Very good question this time of year.

That is an important question right there.

That is an important question, yes. And I'm just thinking, the water, no. We had warm temperatures the last two days, so the water would not be frozen under my local bridge. Yeah, water freezes. Next step is nice.

I saw this video of this woman who lived next to a lake, and they broke the lake apart so they could swim in the ice water. And I'm like, that's resolve right there, man. I don't think I could do it.

Well, near me, there is a January 1st polar group that always goes and takes the polar plunge on January 1st every year.

Whoa, whoa. I was going to say that hasn't happened yet, but January 1st just happened.

Yeah, January 1st already happened. I can't remember. They're usually raising money for charity as well. I can't remember if it's the Boys and Girls Club or something like that. So they go and do this, and they raise funds, and it supports local community to be able to do it. Plus, they get their props and accolades for doing all that, and I stay home where it's nice and warm.

Hey, that's me. Because in Minnesota, they would do the polar plunge. And everyone's like, Katie, you got to do it. I'm like, nah, I'm good. You would have better luck of me jumping in the snow in my swimsuit than getting in that water.

God put ice over it for a reason. That's my thought.

Yeah, so we could walk on it.

Yeah. I heard. Yeah, the health benefits. I was just reading what adorable said there about the health benefits of cold showers and polar plunges. There appears to be. I'm still not convinced that I'm going to do it. I'm not either. No. I'll just skip those health benefits.

I'll take colder showers in the winter. Like I won't take as hot showers. So like then I'm not like shivering when I'm coming out of the shower, but like, I'm still taking warm showers. They're just not scalding hot. Well, unless it's extra cold that I'll use it to heat up the whole bathroom.

I will out myself here, but really, this was a gift I got from my wife. It's a towel warmer, and it's on a timer. So when she would get up in the morning, and she doesn't have to go into work anymore. She's just totally remote. But so that the timer would go on in the morning, warm up the towel, so that when she got out of the shower in the morning, her towel would be nice and warm so she wouldn't shiver when she got out of the shower in the morning.

they had those on sale for black friday and i was tempted to buy one except that like my apartment isn't super huge oh and i'm like you know i don't really have a place for that and the future goals future goals when i have a big house yeah absolutely and and and the wall mounted one is the way to go it totally is okay

Yeah, it's wonderful when you step out of a shower to have a warm towel, even if it's summer. It still feels really good. Still feels really good. Yeah, I believe that. We have been way off on a tangent here for a while, which is great because it really comes back to a lot of the conversations that we were having at REACH, which have to do with how are other people judging us for what God is calling us to do? and yeah and so i don't think i've asked it that way of of other people that i've had on i've asked what obstacles have you faced but i'm going to ask it i think that more directly how have you because we already alluded to it faced criticism from the christian community for being a vtuber for being a christian streamer and doing it the way that you're doing it

I mean, people generally don't understand it. I mean, like, this goes back to my childhood, too, though, because, like, I always kind of liked anime. I liked games, which was always kind of a guy's thing. And then as I got older and I got into more gaming and got into VTBing, that's just like, well, there's not a need for that on the Internet. You're not really spreading the gospel. You're just playing games. Like, what are you really doing with your time? oh so now you're an anime girl on the internet well isn't that kind of inappropriate it's funny because my model sometimes gets flack which is hilarious because my 20s have a more revealing model than me um and i've been told that my model's indecent um that i show too much cleavage um and so it's a lot of like just people are like well you shouldn't play horror games because horror games don't honor god or you shouldn't play tears of the kingdoms because it's demonic you shouldn't play breath of the wild because there's you know demons in it um speaking of ganon well i'm just gonna i'm just gonna pause there for a minute you shouldn't read the bible then because there's demons in it uh yeah it's scandalous i'm showing my shoulders I have been called a flirt by some old dear friends because most of my streaming friends are guys and I stream more with men because of the games that I play. More guys play the games that I play. Like, I love my female friends. Like, they're great. But part of that scheduling conflict, too, right? Right, right. Because they stream earlier than me. It's my work schedule.

I'm just wondering here on some level, because I do know at times individuals who have a really hard time reading social cues. um and and some of them are pretty nerdy people uh that they can't can't read i'm not picking on them in any way but if you're just being friendly as a female they can't read that they don't have enough exposure to it so if you're being friendly you're being flirty could be a really easy thing to read wrong

yeah which i hadn't even thought about in all honesty until a couple days ago because like when the one like uh that happened about a year ago where someone accused me of being a flirt with all the guys that i hang out with and i'm just like what streaming for like five years and no one's called me a flirt before what are you talking about and so i'm just like okay well i don't know what to do with that right now um so jesus help me um And so it's, like, one of those things where I'm just, like, especially, like, having liked horror and kind of shifted away, but, like, also, like, playing a lot of romance visual novels. Because they're not, like, sexually explicit, but there can be, like, sexual undertones.

Right, right.

And some people are, like, that's bad. I'm, like, not all sex is bad. I try to stay away from games that are, like, super sexually explicit. But I'm, like, okay, if my Atomic games are bad, so is Baldur's Gate. Like...

Well, Baldur's Gate, which I do play.

I play Baldur's Gate 3 too, but I have the safer work settings on.

Yeah, I put those settings on as well. But I would say I played Baldur's Gate 1 and Baldur's Gate 2. And actually, Baldur's Gate 1 didn't have the capacity to have any of the sexually explicit showings of anything. But you had the built-in back then of having romance helps you with other people. So, so I, I hate to say it in some way, but of course I played every single thing to lead everybody on. And you just wouldn't, you would just not have that person in the party over here. Who's upset at this person. Right. So you just can't flirt with two people at the party at the same time. So you just put them in and out and you flirt with everybody because they all like you better. And it's a game strategy, but yeah, I don't need the explicit exposure of, of people. um and then and then there's also so yeah i i want to say boy boulders gate three came out was it two years ago three years ago trying to remember almost three years ago i think it's three years old this year yeah yeah that sounds right i started playing it and playing it online and uh streaming it as like you know what nobody came to watch me

it's funny because everyone comes to watch my sister and i because we uh we haven't played we don't usually play games like that so people are super interested in our reactions oh okay sometimes they're hilarious i'm just like why what what's happening here why um but so it's it's interesting and so like all of that plays into me like not always knowing how to act like uh and not knowing how to respond to people so there's like different people who have seen different sides of me but like there's a lot of things i just don't share because like i've been called weird or too much or that's inappropriate and i'm just like i don't i like i don't want to i don't want to offend anybody but like also like anything can be offensive so i tiptoe around a lot because i don't always know how to act or what to say or what to do and it makes it challenging in the streaming space especially um when i like i want to share or say things and i'm just like is that appropriate is that inappropriate because like the reality i grew up in a very secular household i wasn't saved until i was a teenager and so like i kind of have a i can have a crude sense of humor and um so there's a lot of things i try to filter out on the internet and just with people in general because i'm just like i've been so rejected by people in the church because they're like that's not very christ-like well i think we're all being sanctified my friends so we're all the work in progress yeah well and it's hard and on some level there is yeah it we can go to the the pharisees on that but there's a whole level of people want to send manage other people

And if I can sin manage you, then I somehow must feel better about my own sins. Or if I can sin manage you, that means I'm good at identifying sin. So I don't have to worry about what I'm actually doing. I'm getting other people to change. And that, I don't know. But on some level, I think we've done a poor job of a lot of things. One of those is the whole purity culture thing that the church has endured.

As a female who struggled with pornography, at one point in my walk when I was like 18 or 19, I confessed to my female pastor and her husband. And rather than helping, I was more condemned. was called imperial that i wasn't clean um was i like you know x y or z like my purity was called into question question so rather than continue going to church i went more into chronography because i'm just like if this is how people in the church are gonna treat me jesus like how do i respond to this like at least here i can like you know find a semblance about it at the time i thought was freedom love and acceptance which wasn't the case at all right right um because like it like turned off all feelings like i didn't have to feel when when i was in that addiction and so um when i tried to get help in the church as a as a young uh like a young adult female like woman um the church didn't know how to handle it

You know, that is an interesting thing about that is that on some level, the church hasn't faced it entirely. There are and there continuously are scandals that come out about pastors and or elders, deacons with issues with that. Not not unrelated, but we just had an elementary school teacher near me who was found with child pornography. so it the the whole pornography thing is not going to go away and and the rise of it has um it's gone up it's gone up and it's also crossed over to it doesn't matter your gender anymore it used to no it doesn't it used to be 40 to 80 percent of women are addicted and 90 of men

And it's more like between 60 and 80% of women nowadays are addicted. And it doesn't look the same for women and men. No. It looks completely different, which is part of the reason I don't think the church was prepared for that because it isn't the same kind for both genders. It's completely different, generally speaking.

I think there's also a problem at if we talk about it, that will make it more prevalent. And it it's not that way. And also often the church has had a posture of to address things. People will not admit them because what has happened to you is exactly why people don't admit it. So instead of getting help. for the problems that they have. They keep it to themselves. They put on the persona of I am perfect on Sunday, even though you might be drinking and partying on Friday night and Saturday night until you wake up with a hangover and go to church or whatever your vice is.

I was addicted to pornography while being an intern youth pastor. And I learned later. I'm pretty sure my church knew about it. I can't confirm it, but I have suspicions that they knew. And they still let me. And I'm just like, it is, in my opinion... far too easy to go to like seminary or bible school and get a a pass to pastor without making sure like you don't have like a lust addiction or an alcohol addiction or i'm like because i'm like guys like what you do will trickle down to your flock like you you can only hide it for so long everything comes to light like and that's gonna have catastrophic effects on your body and uh like the church body um and i'm just like rather rather than continuing i i stopped going to bible school i i actually stopped going to church for a while um and my heart pressure was like and i like i went so far i wouldn't necessarily necessarily recommend this for people i stopped praying for forgiveness because i kept committing the sin i'm like lord i don't want to abuse your grace I'm like, show me why I'm stuck here so I can really repent. And that prayer didn't come until years later where like, I kind of still dabbled in it. So it wasn't completely free, but I wasn't like addicted. Although I'd argue I was still in the addiction. But like that prayer was answered years later of like why I struggled for so long.

um but like i'm just like i couldn't in good conscience knowing that i felt like i was abusing grace in my spirit continue to pray for forgiveness when i was like knowing i was just gonna go and do it the next day right that's a really interesting thought there of do you pray and ask for forgiveness uh even if you feel sorry for it if you know your weakness that you will struggle the next day and probably fall again and i don't know the answer is the same for everybody but i love how you process through that for yourself not that you weren't engaging god but that you were not going to say like i just want to get the i prayed for it i'm forgiven and i'm going to do it again tomorrow with intent that i know i'm going to so i i just want the absolution so to speak using uh not picking on anyone who who believes that but just like i want absolved of it now i'll go do it again tomorrow which kind of kind of reminds me of the phrase which i by the way do like It's easier to ask for forgiveness than to ask for permission. I'm misapplying that a little bit in this circumstance, but the fact that we all struggle I think, well, I experienced this and I think we do as streamers sometimes too, but not the same way because there are not as many Christians who are in streaming, but I got lots of flack at times for being transparent as a pastor and talking about struggles that I was struggling with. And then we go, you can't talk about struggles. You're supposed to be the one who has everything together. And I'm like, if you wait for me to get it all together, I will never be a pastor. Like, maybe on my deathbed I could finally give my first sermon because I have no possibility of screwing up anymore. So, plus Peter screwed up all the way along. If we were waiting for Peter to get it right, which Peter, by the way, my favorite person in all of Scripture, because usually as a kid... Like, before I knew all the stories, Peter would say the thing that my brain said you should say, and then Peter would be wrong about it. And I'd go, but I still would have said what Peter said.

That's exactly how I thought. It was so funny coming up because, like, my grandparents were – I'm not saying all Catholics aren't saved. So I'm prefacing that because about what I'm about to say, my grandparents were saved out of Catholicism into like the Pentecostal like church. They did not find Jesus in Catholicism. They found rituals, rules, and things that did not feel loving. and so when my grandma at 30 found a spirit believing church and she got what she felt like was really saved and had an encounter with the lord um uh it was so it was interesting growing up because they believed my mom wasn't a believer so i lived in like dual worlds oh yeah so using for my brain because i'm just like okay god says not to divorce god says that this is how the family's supposed to be my dad left me all these men my mom have around suck my grandparents are kind of safe but kind of confused they clearly love the lord um and it it was hard and so when i was 15 uh i had like this huge fight with my mom's husband at the time i went into my bedroom but i distinctly remember this there was a crack on my wall and the light was shining perfectly on it and i looked up at it and i was crying i'm like okay jesus like if you are who you say you are prove it And I called my grandma. So I'm like, if like, am I in my teenage brain at that point? I was like, if I'm going to have him prove who he is, I need to go to where he is. And that's a church building.

Oh, okay.

expertise like like my knowledge at the time was like that's where his people meet his people meet at church so i called my grandma i'm like hey can i start going to church with you on wednesdays to figure out who this jesus man is and she's like i would love that

I was, just to interrupt you, I was waiting for something to happen to the crack. When you say, I saw this crack on the wall. And I'm waiting for Jesus to do something, you know. No, no, I need to go to church.

I'm waiting on the crack. We're all broken. Right, right. And the Lord's a light.

And so that's like, I would have been cool if he healed the crack in the wall.

I was waiting for something like all of a sudden there was, there was light shining through the crack or I didn't know what it was going to be. Yeah. I, I, because I've heard, I've heard those stories and they don't happen for everybody. But I love whatever God does in your life because that's what God needs to do for you. And what he does in my life is what I need. And they're not going to be the same.

He's personal. Yes. And that's something that I had to learn is that like every walk is different. So like we have empathy and sympathy, but like neither one are completely perfect at all times because you will never completely understand what someone else went through. um because you are not that person and so like i can empathize to a certain extent or i can sympathize to a certain extent but i will never completely understand especially if i've never gone through something like that right like then i want to sit with you but right well even even given the same circumstance that you're experiencing you don't experience it the same way as someone else Yeah, Corky and I are good examples of that.

Well, I was just going to say, my stepdad, when he passed away, which was right before COVID and a week before Christmas, I don't experience it the same way that my mom does who lost her spouse. I don't experience it the same way my younger brother does who took his last name. I don't experience it the same way. I also can't experience it the same way any of my siblings did because I was the arrogant little guy that when we first met him and he took us out to eat, I ordered the most expensive thing on the menu to see what he would do about it. instead of ordering off of the kids menu i ordered the most expensive thing and he goes that's what you want great and i was waiting i like i was waiting for a flight over this and i didn't know what to do with his uh extending grace and mercy to me so that was really interesting supersonic redeeming some spot of tea here for me uh so usually on my channel you know i will have spot of tea and i am drinking blueberry merlot right now so that sounds good i'm just drinking water

I had milk before stream, but I try to drink water on stream. I'm generally too lazy to make tea before stream.

Oh, well, I drink a liter and a half in the morning, and then this is the second pot of the day, so this is another liter and a half of tea.

You keep dehydrated.

I've always been hydrated, and then I had a coffee in the middle of the afternoon today, so I'm pretty hydrated.

I wish I could say that my stepdads and my dads have had great experiences in my life, but they haven't. And the reality of that has made it hard for me to connect with God as the father. But I pray to him as Alba now. So, you know, I've made progress.

Yeah, very cool. Well, I can say, not to get off on the sidetrack there, but I do think it's relevant. The models we have in our life are relevant to us. I have done so much more reflecting on the value of my stepdad and the man I am is because of him. And I never saw it until the end. Like I did not know. the model that he put in front of me that I watched and the things that he taught me and the quietness of who he was, which was contrary to every model that I had prior to him. So I didn't know what to do with that model. Even, even as an adult, I didn't know what to do with it. Now that he's gone, it's, it's like this value for me that like he was Jesus right there. And I didn't see him.

Can I ask how old you were when you met your stepdad?

12 years old, 13, something like that.

Somewhere in there.

Yeah. So I'm like, I told this to his face somewhere along there. I don't know if it was the first meeting or not. You're not my dad and you'll never replace him. So I was an angry young man and he took every blow I gave him and he never retaliated. whoa which which to me is the image of the father in the story that jesus tells which i hate calling it prodigal it is the man with two sons that is what jesus says it's the man with two sons and he took all of the shame i would dish him and he acted just like the father in that and that's what i try to be

Whoa.

Sunshine, he may have served as a deacon at one point. It's a good question. I don't think I ever asked him that question, but I know he did serve at his church before he was divorced, and then he never served again after that for, I think, his own convictions and whatnot. By the way, Sunshine, it's good to see you, friend. I haven't seen you for a while. I hope you're doing well.

Yeah, it's really hard. But next best, if you ever want to talk, my DMs are open.

well i i i feel really good about about where that relationship is now yeah i just wish at some point i'd realized it sooner yeah i actually moved to the house where i live uh nine years ago because when my youngest was graduating from high school he had been diagnosed with early onset alzheimer's And I said, God, if you open a door that I can move back and be by him, I would love to because I don't want to go five years and he doesn't know who I am because I only see him for Christmas and maybe in the summer for a day or two, twice a year. And it happened. Now I've lived here longer than I ever have. And the other funny part of it is he lived 45 minutes away from where I live when I moved here. And a month later, he moved to the retirement home, which is five hours away from me.

Still closer.

Well, that move would have made it even more likely that I would not have seen him but once a year. so so the fact that he was five hours away instead of seven to eight hours actually meant i saw him every other month for the last three years of his life whoa how sweet yeah it was it was it was fantastic i treasured every moment of of that yeah uh i didn't know how good it was i was just treasuring it in the moment and i've been doing a lot of reflecting on it afterwards so it's been great

yeah um my grandma who was like a mom to me passed away i think in 2021 i think if i remember correctly and um every all of her kids had like some sort of like vision or like saw something when she had passed away and quirky and i had like dreams and um my grandma and i had these really lovely god conversations she really instilled the love of love in me for the word and asking questions And like going before the Lord and like sitting at his feet and like just talking to him. And so like in this dream, like basically literally like the day or so before she like her body died, we were sitting downstairs in her actual house where we all still lived when she was alive. And I still live there. Not now, but at the time I did. And we were having this really amazing conversation about life and God. And I got up and I looked back at her and she always had this look on her face when like she knew things would be tough, but she knew they would be okay. And in that moment, like I knew I'm like, she's going home. Like I'm going to wake up and she's going home. But I'm like, how sovereign is the Lord that I got to say goodbye in such a unique way that only he could give me. And my whole life was spent with her.

Yeah, I totally know that piece that you're talking about. I got that with him. He was at my house for Thanksgiving and he said goodbye and gave me a hug. And it felt like this is the last time I'm going to see him. And we had that like silent moment together. I was convinced he was telling me that. I was convinced that he knew I knew that. But I didn't share it with my kids. uh because i was afraid to be wrong about it and i also felt like this was just for me and then he got sick uh a week after getting where my brother and sister lived and seeing every other grandkid that he had and being able to see them he then went into the hospital and he passed away a week later before anybody else could get there so he went and he did all of his goodbyes between thanksgiving and two weeks later and he was gone

yeah i think people know sometimes especially as believers like i feel like there's a grace there that the lord gives us oh yeah i i think it makes the pain less like it doesn't make sense like to my like because my mom found out a year later that i had this dream because i didn't share it with her um quirky and i had shared like instantly because we both had dreams and like we talk a lot because we're twins um and uh but like a year or so later my mom found out and she's like why didn't you tell me and i'm like i didn't want you to feel like i was trying to take something away from you and your grief um where you feel less than because of how you like experienced her goodbye because we all experienced it differently

Well, and I wasn't bringing that up to try to say, oh, you know, that everybody should have that, but it's... Yeah, no, no, no. It's recognize if you get a chance to do that, what a blessing that that is to be able to have that happen.

Yeah.

Why does it say that the title still says... That's not what it says on my screen. So I...

Try refreshing?

Yeah, try refreshing, Supersonic. Maybe it was stuck in the cache.

That's happened to me a couple times.

I hope that's not what it is. I'll go change it later if it is.

Shows now.

Okay. We were talking about, we got a little bit on the side there of people attacking you and treating you differently. Have there been other obstacles that you have faced as being a streamer, being intentionally Christian, whether you're a Christian streamer or a streamer who is Christian? What have been some other things that you have faced either in life or in streaming?

in life i would just say like a lot of people don't get it uh my family says criticize me um thankfully now they've come around because they see what i'm trying to do but that took five years they're like you're wasting your time like it's no good go get a real job go do something more meaningful with your time like work at a soup kitchen or something um streaming wise i think it can be pretty isolating when even if you're a streamer who is christian um and trying to be more intentional about how you speak because like when i started streaming i was not intentional like i swore way more i'm still trying to overcome swearing but i swear less now than i did um and so it's like i don't i don't want to appear the way the world does Like, I don't want to like be overly complaining or like overly emotional. Not that like emotions are bad or talking about struggles is bad, but I think there's a difference between like, this sucks all the time. And oh, like I'm having a hard time. Like, how am I like saying things, right?

There is definitely a difference between a person that is complaining about life circumstance and a person that is sharing the struggles that they're going through.

yeah and so sometimes it can be misunderstood of like oh well you're some people have thought i'm trying to be holier than art thou and i'm like no i'm not i'm just trying to be intentional you could if you were doing that why not put a halo you know up there right you know which is hilarious because my mom always thought i was like a whole a holy roller as a as a teenager who was learning about jesus

And I'm like, oh boy.

So I haven't, like, I think I've been fortunate in this streaming space to not get too much pushback outside of the horror stuff. Because that's like a big concern for like different Christian groups. um and i and like i even try to be intentional like i don't play phasmophobia i don't watch stranger things and that's for like personal conviction because my family dealt with the occult so like my grandma had a ouija board her ex-fiance who passed away like did seances and stuff um and it like goes back like even further than that for my family so like i try to be intentional about like not doing things with like you know like that stuff but like zombie games i'm like oh swag but there's also games like that i played like fran bow that have like portals and stuff and i i'll talk about like how that relates to like the spiritual realm and like what that means and what that looks like because i am under the belief that humans are not as creative as we like to think that we are

because there's nothing new under the sun so you're getting your ideas from somewhere whether you read them whether the lord told you or whether the enemy told you and um that's got me in some hot waters some people think i'm crazy that's okay well adorable will and i were talking about that in a little bit different way and i was i was trying to talk about the fact and and some of the like the things that people think are new in the church shouldn't use and do which within tech i'm like this is just a new iteration of something that we've already done So so the Paul writing letters to people was using the tech of the day, using the Roman roads, using a person who was a scribe to pen that, sending a courier, a messenger that he knew to read it to the audience. That was all his way of being able to do what you and I are doing right now and engaging one another. when we can't be physically presence with one another. And so we were talking like, this is a new iteration. We've had others. We went from there to doing pen pals, to doing, we could talk on the phone, to doing, now we can do video. We just keep iterating the same thing over and over again in new ways. And to say in some way, like what the podcast really is trying to claim, redeeming the space and resetting the, like, For most things, there are people who will say that they are unredeemable and they can't be used for God. But most of us don't remember the things that used to be called that. So the organ was called that because the organ started in the bar hall. So the organ can't be used by God. The piano can't be used by God because it started in the bar hall. But we'll remember that the guitar can't be used by God because it started in the bar hall. It's always been the same argument. We don't have any new arguments. The world keeps creating new ways to do things, and we need to keep doing ways of redeeming those for God. That would be my argument.

yeah i um you tried to memory there was once a pastor that i was listening to that says rather than trying to like keep christians off the internet why don't we try to figure out how to use the internet to glorify god because we're missing so much when we try to stay away from things that so many people are on And you're not reaching people the same way because it's not pen pals. It's not just chat rooms anymore. It's live streaming and YouTube and TikTok and Insta reels. And by trying to stay away from that, you're missing a whole audience and a whole generation.

And there may be people that, yes, they need to for themselves stay off of TikTok or stay off of Reels. But to say that no Christian should be is to abdicate the authority and the rule and reign of Christ to Satan. And I'm not willing to do that. I don't want to abdicate and say, Satan, you get to have TikTok. No Christians can be on there. Satan, you get to have Twitch. No Christians could be on there. I'm sorry. I don't want to give him any ground because I don't think he has rule and reign that's worth anything.

amen and i think that's one of the things that like is important right it's like the lord told us to steward the earth and we we all might be broken and we live in a fallen world but we were redeemed through the blood of christ yes and he told us to go out and that looks different in this generation it's not just going out and preaching on the street corner or you know going into different places it's part of it is on the internet now and like we need people here too and i'm so like because i've talked about my pornography addiction on my channel like i've talked about how i'm not perfect i'm like i don't want people to think christians are like these holy out beings who don't have life struggles who aren't like going through things because the reality of it is we're all going through something it just might not look the same um and it's okay to like be like yeah i'm having a really hard time could you like pray for me like i've had people in my community who are like hey i'm trans i'm with my girlfriend we're moving in together but like we're having a hard time could you pray for us i'm like absolutely like please like share more of your hardship with me let me let me fight this fight with you um and that was one thing that i went through with some people once where they didn't understand how i could be so involved in the lgb community not that i was involved but i have i had so many friends in that community and i've since kind of lost them because of other people in my life constantly judging me for being friends with them and ridiculing me and being like you can't be friends with them like that's like you know whatever and i'm just like i'm sitting here now and i'm just like man i miss those friendships i miss being able to be a bit of a light in their life and they would ask me bible questions and talk to me about god Even if they didn't believe they knew I was a safe space to like ask those questions without judgment. And now I don't have that because people in the, like, I tend to overcorrect when people judge me rather than sticking to what the Lord's called me to do. Cause I'm so worried about the opinion of man. That's one of my weaknesses. And I, that that's part of the reason I struggle on Twitch. Cause I'm so worried about what people will think of me.

And I can admit that. And it's not easy to admit.

It's like, yeah, that's my fear.

And you're not alone in that. But I just like I'm thinking of myself and like I've been that stubborn, obstinate, out of the box person that never wanted to fit in with the crowd. I mean, I've been wearing a flat cap since seventh grade. Nobody in seventh grade was going, oh, my goodness, you know what's super cool is those flat caps. oh man i want to be in the in crowd no we were wearing guest jeans and uh that's what we were doing and i'm like i want to stand out i don't want to be like anybody else so i've like um I won't go into it. I was just trying to think of how I used to phrase it. But essentially, I would try to sometimes intentionally offend people just so that I could see, are you actually going to care about me or are you just looking for a way to judge me? If you're just going to judge me, I got no time for you. so i would i would intentionally be very crass and rude towards friends parents so that i could size them up and figure out where they were going to place me so i didn't have to waste any time with them which to me is like wow i see lots of people do the same thing in twitch space and it's like yeah i know where you're coming from you you come into my stream and you see i've got pastor in my name and you want to size me up Feel free to do that. You get to do that because I did that to other people. next step is oh man you know what's super cool those flat caps yeah my co-worker came to work wearing a flat cap uh yesterday and today and i thought of you like oh flat cap yeah no one thought fedoras were cool when you wore them every day in high school yes yes yeah i i started in middle school so i'm i've been doing it longer fedorable will just saying just saying because you made it cool first Well, I'll tell you what. It has been super fun in the Internet age because I can get them. Like, oh, my goodness. I had to get my first one at a second-hand store because there were no stores that sold them.

Mm-hmm. are still some specialty hat stores i don't remember where i lived but like there was one place that i went that like you want it was a mall and this mall had a hat store where the hats were handmade and i'm like brah this is a lost art i wish i would have remembered where it was because like they had some really cool hats

Let's not go down that trail. I will just talk about hats for a half an hour. Easy, easy. I could go down that trail for a long time.

Another time, another time.

Another time. I will eventually need to start another podcast that will just talk about hats, or I'm going to start my own hat line. It's going to be one of those two. I don't know which one.

Why not do both? You can talk about hats and advertise your own hat line. There we go. It's the best of both worlds.

Well, I'll tell you this. Just stay on hats for just one more thing. So right after I got started as a streamer, there were a lot of people that were talking about trying to get sponsorships. So I wrote an email to the company where a third of my hats came from. And I told them, hey, I'm a streamer. I wear a hat. I'd advertise your stuff. They probably had no idea what Twitch was or anything. And they're like, what's this weird thing? I'm like, you just send me a hat. I'll give it away on stream and all of this. They never responded.

Oh, bummer.

Yeah. They also sell all kinds of hats, not just flat caps. So it would have been fun. It would have been fun. I'll give a hat away every month I thought would be cool.

That would have been cool. Hey, who knows? Maybe one day they'll see the email and respond.

Yeah, maybe the email was caught in limbo and it'll be delivered now when it actually would be.

Redeem of the hats.

Yes. Yeah, redeem of the hats. Okay, let's jump off of that topic or I'll keep going. So we talked about some of the struggles and we talked about like, just because you're a Christian doesn't mean the struggles aren't there. But one of the things that we've talked about, too, is how we can have a perspective in those to be able to see good in the midst of struggles and sorrow. But what have been some like just straight up moments of blessing that you've experienced as being a Twitch streamer in your community or for you yourself?

my gosh honestly like when i started out twitch streaming it was such a blessing like so like most people it can take years to get affiliate now it's a little bit easier because the different guidelines but when i got into streaming years ago like i knew people who had been streaming for like three four years who still had a hit affiliate i got affiliate in six months Which was such a blessing because at that time, like, I wasn't very big. However, like, the Lord really used my community to bless me, so I always had just enough to pay my bills. Because, like, I wasn't working at the time because of COVID. Right. And so, like, I had, like, drained through my savings account, paying bills, keeping up on stuff. and so i was like jesus i'm like i have no idea how i'm gonna have money to like you know go out with my family um to like pay like the bills i need to pay like you know i i don't have like anything else i can do besides this right now and every month like clockwork i always had just enough and like there'd be months where i would have just enough to even like go out with my family for dinner um and it was such a blessing and then like just to support like one of the i think one of the best things that happened as i was shimmer when i looked at i moved out i found reach like reach connecting with so many people who love the lord in this space has been so healing for me and like because i got to meet you and had lovely conversations and some like adorable will and so many other amazing people at reachconf that i'm just like this space is full of people who love jesus and i wouldn't have met them had i not gotten my pc six years ago and started streaming

um and then just this consistency of my community hey we're getting it right we're getting a raid hang on hang on wait let me see did i i don't think i've got that yet i need to do that because we've had one or two raids on here i need to create a raid clip but let me welcome everybody coming in with the raid we've got i'm watching you people raid and stuff we have hugs Yes, we do. And then there's a bunch of emojis. We have cookies. We do. And I have cookies on my other channel because I'm watching you people. And I have pizza. And I have fruit. And I have ice cream. And now I have tacos. So we've got all kinds of things. And SkyDragonFang, welcome in. Glad to have you here.

Is that a Deadpool emote?

Yes, it looks like it's a Deadpool let's go. dragon fang just followed hey thank you for the follow sky dragon fang supersonic s and fish and hats well we don't pass out fish on my channel i was talking about the things that we we can pass to one another as you come in with the command so we got 15 people coming in what a blessing hi You know what? I don't know if I have active mods here right now. I can't even remember who's active in this channel and who's not. So let me give a shout out there for I'm watching you people. I'm a very slow mod, a slow typer, and a dyslexic typer. By that, I mean my fingers type in the wrong order. it sometimes yes oh yes and i have a t command as well supersonic exactly so welcome in everybody those that do not know i am flat cap dapper pastor this is control alt redeem and And I invite friends on here to talk about what they are doing as a Twitch streamer, intentionally being Christian and being light in the space of Twitch so that we can help make it a less toxic place. And Katie Bug, if you'd like to introduce yourself, because not everybody's going to know you.

Hi, I'm Katie Bug. I love Jesus and 2D men. So if you like anime and gotcha and JRPGs, I'm your girl.

I don't think I, maybe I've heard that before, but I was taking a sip when you, I love 2D men.

Yeah. So I was going to, so that's actually my catchphrase. Okay. I love Jesus and 2D men because I have like a tier list of like a hundred plus husbandos from back from when I'm 14 to current. And I was going to try to change it. And then I started going into people's chats. You like had those like explanation point, like shout outs. I'll like give a little snippet. And no matter how often I changed what I said, it always like, Teddy bug loves Jesus and 2D men. And I'm like, well, I'm stuck with it now. The AI knows! It's never going away! So I'm like, you know what? I might as well embrace it. It's okay.

There you go. There you go. Well, on one level, let me throw this at you because I love reframing things. That's the way my brain works.

No, I love that.

Both Peter and Paul are 2D men because you only get to read them in the Bible. You don't actually get to see them. So both Peter and Paul and every one of your favorite biblical characters outside of Jesus and the Holy Spirit. are all two-dimensional men. So there we go.

Oh my gosh.

Honestly, though, I'm feeling that now.

Hey, I throw stuff out there. I'm a very creative person. If you know StrengthsFinder, my number one StrengthsFinder is ideation. My brain does not stop thinking, creating, and doing those things. Yes, it's just a reiteration of somebody else's creation, but it's still probably something you haven't quite heard worded that way before. So...

Yeah, no, I love that. Although granted, I do, I will say like, that's, that has been a struggle a couple of times that my saying is I love Jesus and 2d man. Cause everyone's like, Jesus is a 2d man. Now, funnily enough, he's actually in an anime. I don't love the anime that he's in, but I can be like, yeah, there's an anime version of Jesus too. So. Well, there's also AI Jesus.

If you haven't seen that.

I have not.

Yeah. There's a Twitch channel that was AI Jesus, I want to say about 18 months ago is when I saw it. And I actually found, I want to say it's Stream Elements has where you can get an AI for your channel. And one of the choices is Jesus, that you can have AI Jesus on your channel. Yeah, you're typing this all in. You got to go check it out and find out.

no i was actually responding to chat oh okay okay okay i have mixed feelings uh about like ai and gospel and ai and jesus um because i'm like i can't i don't i don't know how i feel about it

Well, I think it depends, just like everything else, and we were talking earlier about who's creating it, why they're creating it, and how you're using it. So I think AI, and it already is. Actually, I don't remember. I think I was having this conversation. It might have been Fedorable Will at REACH conference. It was around the fact that AI is only fed information from it. There is so much, like if you just go read all the books that are out there and the number of books that are written about things, there are more books written about the Bible than any other topic and any other subject. So as AI begins to take in every single commentary that's written and every single thing that's produced by Christians, it is not going to be able to help itself, but to evolve to being more Christ-like in its thinking and in its knowledge because there's so much of it.

Oh, that's true. I hadn't thought about it that way.

Right. I've had that conversation and heard that somewhere else. I've had that conversation a couple of times. But I do have a friend who, shoot, I got the app on my phone. Let me make sure I've got Venture AI. And it's not fully out there for public access. I'm a beta tester in it. But it is an AI discipleship coach.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, so you can go watch on my channel. I've got a VOD or two that I've done on it. You have daily check-ins. You can have a daily verse that you can do. You can ask it Bible questions. I've tested it out on my stream multiple times, asking it some really bizarre questions about the Bible, that it's done a fantastic job being able to render that and then come back with a discussion around it and then hypothesis. Oh, that's so cool, actually. Yeah, it's been really good.

I'm going to have to try that out on my stream one day.

Yeah, yeah. If you don't have the link for it, anybody that wants it, DM me directly. I've got codes. I'm not publishing them. You'll have to DM me if you're interested. If adorable will. My brain wants to experiment with that and see how it will respond to what are your thoughts on Calvinist view to predestination. You certainly could ask it that. I've not thought to ask that. But I also, while I may or may not fall into one camp of theology, I don't have any issue with people who come down on another side. I think on some level, our brains cannot fathom the unfathomable. And by that, I mean, how can I, a mortal, comprehend God immortal? How can I, a created thing, comprehend the one that created me? I just don't think I have capacity. So no matter which theology, systematic or otherwise, that you fall into by your heritage or by extrapolation of study, you're taking one viewpoint to look at something that's more than three-dimensional. And you just are highlighting the things that you are grasping onto most. That's the way I kind of look at it.

Yeah, no, it's funny because on that vein, with the rapture and Armageddon and all of that, I simply describe myself as a pre-wrath girly. And whenever I say I'm pre-wrath, everyone puts me in a camp. And I'm like, I don't know what pre-wrath looks like. I just know it's biblical. And they're like, well, that's mid-trib. I'm like, well, there's a lot of different things supporting the different camps.

I don't want, don't put me in a camp. I don't want to be in a camp.

Yeah. well i i probably have all the camps are bad but oh no no and that's that's where you reside in your thinking i probably have back here a book five views on the book of revelation five views these aren't pagan views these are christian views on it if if we have five views currently that we're using and if you look at historical views that we have been able to have the the rapture view is less than 200 years old so historically the church has not not held to that view at all so if it came along in the last 200 years does it matter if it's right if the first 1800 years nobody had that view i don't know but the bigger thing i would say and usually how i answer the question is nobody got it right when jesus came the first right time

right my expectation of how many are going to get it right when his second coming happens is exactly the same number zero yeah i like how you said that in your stream today actually because i like her a lot in your streams because i like i will watch while i'm at work and um i'm just like how true is that though like so many people missed it because i thought it would be one way and then it wasn't yeah and i'm just like bro like so too will that happen again because i feel like we we as humans we like to put god in a box like i i do it too right to try to comprehend and it's like you said like he's outside of that it's like i have like bubbles here like god's outside of time my life is made up of bubbles god knows what bubble i'm gonna pick i don't know what bubble i'm gonna pick until i pick it uh what do we have here oh

Yeah. Sorry, auto-mod there. Yeah, that's not a big deal.

So to answer your question, Supersonic, pre-wrath, I mean that it doesn't make sense to me that Christians would face the wrath of God. We will face judgment, but it doesn't make sense to me that people who believe in him would face his wrath, like his outpouring of judgment in the same way that a non-believer would, like the separation of sheep and goats. So my thought is like our judgment isn't as like... the same like it's so like pre-wrath i mean like pre-like harsh like pouring out his anger on the world because god is a just god and i think that's something that we don't talk about a lot is that god is a just god and vengeance is his to give right and that he is a judge and that one day we will all be judged and our works will be tested

Yeah, well, and another thing that I don't know if I've ever worded this way until I just went through Genesis earlier this year, which, you know, I've read through the Bible multiple times on my stream, but, you know, we're doing it again this year, and I'm trying to record all of those and post them. But because I was exposed to a bunch of people that recently were doing videos about how angry God is in the Old Testament and all of this stuff. And I had a few comments in my videos around that already. But I'm like, the very first thing that God does when the first person does the wrong thing is he does not kill them. He shows them mercy. He shows them mercy. So God said, you will die. And then he showed mercy instead. And then Cain kills Abel, and he does not exact punishment of killing him. He instead shows mercy. And then when you get to Exodus 6, and there's different ways of reading this. So historically, a lot of Bibles said, and the lifetime of man shall be 120 years, but it doesn't have to be rendered that way. It can be rendered... in the life the this will not last but more than 120 years so it's a coming judgment will be in 120 years so god is saying that he is tired of the violence but he's saying i'm waiting 120 years and then i'm going to judge it and then you also that was mercy yeah that was mercy and and i like how the bible project talks about it yeah um i love that yeah So we often hold one viewpoint because it's what we've heard, and we don't know how to question what we've been taught sometimes. We just accept what's been given to us until somebody questions it. and ask, well, why do we do it that way? Or why is that true? And sometimes we just can't fully get to the answer because we get stuck in a rut of our thinking and our vision to be able to see that's the only thing that's there.

yeah um my i guess my view is like because i haven't formulated it completely because i haven't done a deep dive onto pre-wrath but i don't necessarily know if i believe in the rapture the same way others do um and i want to dig more into like what used to be pre-rapture thinking But I want to say this. I think I mentioned this, Flap Cap. One of my favorite books of the Bible is Leviticus. Oh, yes. We talked about this. You see both the judgment and the love of God. I'm like, Leviticus is a love letter of reconciliation of how we can have communion with God in our failures and how he wanted us to have communion with him and how he made a way for that. Praise Jesus. Yes. And so, like... i i fell in love with the lord of the universe through leviticus through a women's bible study that i went to at like 21. like i mean i was already in love with him prior to that but like there was like a deeper richness to how much i loved him and i'm just like man leviticus isn't just a book of laws it's a love letter

Well, yeah, and we talked about this at REACH conference. I mean, I said it from stage. Leviticus is one of my top five books in the Bible. You want to talk about it, ask me about it. I'm not going to tell you up here. I had several people take me up on that. But the thing that we miss in so much of Leviticus, because we don't practice it, it was the instructions for the priest on how to live as an example for the people. Yeah. And part of what they do in all of the sacrifices, which we just get the idea that blood sacrifice is the only sacrifice. It is a very small portion of the sacrifices. There are bread offerings. There are grain offerings. There are olive oil offerings. There are wine offerings. There is fat offering. There's wave offerings, which is my personal favorite because I want to wave this in front of you and show off what I'm bringing you. Like, is this not what a little kid does? mommy mommy daddy daddy look what i have look what i have i want to show you what i have like we're bringing to our father a wave offering showing off what we're bringing i love that and then we for we don't realize because this is not our experience We don't get to participate very often when we bring our offering in a common church. Like I bring my cash, I put it in the offering plate, or I swipe my card now, or I do it digitally. There's no participation in it. When they were bringing these offerings, much of the time there was eating the meal as a part of this. There was a participation.

Not Moses, Noah, my bad.

With what was happening. in that moment. So yeah, we got to commune with God when we brought our offerings. We got to participate with the community when we did that. We got to participate with our family, the priest. You would have your local Levi from your town that would come with you that you would give, and he got to eat from it. It was all relational in giving. We don't have relational giving. card swipe offering plate no they're separate they wouldn't be in the offering plate it would just be well i guess you could write your number down but uh supersonic but like all my giving is done online like i don't i don't give anything in person i i remember when i was a teenager my grandfather he's like how would the church react if a farmer brought in a cow because he didn't have money right

Because so often like in today's age, it's like give money, give money, give money. I really kind of like how my church is like, hey, like if you have like gift cards or like extra like school supplies or like because they go out to the homeless ministry in my area and or they'll like have gift cards to give to families in need so they can go like buy what they need. It's not just monetary gifts. It's like you can give what you have, which I think is beautiful. um granted we do need monetary gifts today to keep the you know things running but like there's so much more like i argued with someone once about how i tithe my time when i didn't have anything else to give um because i'm like you can you can offer your time to the lord um if you have nothing else because like you are giving of what you have and uh that was a whole huge and a half debate Because we're still, especially in America, we're so used to giving, tithing equal money. But when you see in scripture, it's like the grain, the like different things for the priesthood. And I'm like, it's not just monetary. There is a time and place for monetary. And then there's a time and place for like where they brought stuff to build the temple and there was too much. And they're like, stop giving.

Oh, that's one of my favorite. Yeah. Which is, which I can't like, that's what, that's the one thing I like. I've always wished to see on my lifetime is a time where I say, stop giving like, or I hear of a church that says, stop giving. We have, we've got too much. Uh, I've, I've, I've yet to see people respond more than the need. And we usually fall short of the need. It seems for the most part.

I pray for the days that we have more than, um, and they're like, stop. We have more than enough. Yeah. because how much of a joyous day will that be?

Oh, it had to be glorious. The other thing was is the people that were doing all that giving, I think they're at Sinai for about two months before they get to that point of starting the construction. Six months before that, they didn't have any of that wealth. I like to phrase it this way. I don't mean to offend anybody, so take it tongue-in-cheek if you need to. It was all parting gifts from leaving slavery in Egypt. They took all the parting gifts that they got. They didn't know what to do with these. They didn't have them. They probably kept some of the stuff they really liked and enjoyed that they got from their master or whoever else, their neighbors. They were supposed to go ask for silver and gold and gems and all of that. They're giving because God's given them abundance. What are they going to do with it in the desert?

Yeah.

So they're like, yeah, we're going to build God's tavern. I'll give to that. Here, let me give all that I can.

Yeah.

But yeah, if you do not have wealth to give, what can you give? You give what you have.

It was like the lady who didn't have much but gave two pennies and the Lord's like, you know, what did he say in that moment? I forget.

Well, she's given more than everyone else because she gave out of her lack and they gave out of their abundance. I'm paraphrasing, but essentially.

Yeah, yeah. Thank you. Thank you.

Yeah, it's so fascinating at times how we view things and we want to put our views on other people, just like we were talking about rapture earlier. I'm fine with people that have that view. I don't have that view. But if you have it, I'm not opposed to you. We can have that view. What I'm more concerned of is, do you love Jesus and do you love your neighbor? That's where I'm going to spend my time.

Amen.

We're talking about blessings. Do you have any stories of things that have happened in your stream to bless others that have come into your stream, or just something that they were able to have an encounter with God as they came and were around you in that space?

i don't know i'm i'm sure there have been people i mean i think one of the blessings that i had to give back was we did a couple charity streams for saint jude oh cool my community really showed up to give to that and that was a blessing um because that was on my heart to give back for that uh I think about someone, I don't remember their name. They don't come around often much anymore, but she was trans and she was just like, can I still come here? Even though like you're Christian and I'm this way. I'm like, please. And she showed up for like two years and we would just chat and we wouldn't even necessarily talk God. She would come to some of my God talks, but we would just, we would just chat and hang out. I have a friend who wants to talk religion with me now. agnostic i think is what he currently uh currently goes by and i'm just like we haven't made it happen yet because he did he's on night shifts on monday shifts but that's been a blessing um that i could hopefully one of these days we can make that happen so i can get back in that way i mean just have a conversation of like hey this is what i believe this is what you believe and here's why and just like kind of like iron out the why behind the what um but yeah um some of the speed of moments are like the people who don't believe who come in and say like can i be here and i'm like yeah they stay because i've also had people come in and find out and leave and i'm like that's fine too like i get it like a lot of people have hurt by by people who love jesus because

Yeah, either directly or friends or... Yeah. Yeah, and I think that's a tragic thing. However, they've probably also been hurt by non-Christians. So I've been hurt by Christians. I've been hurt by non-Christians. I probably will be hurt by people again this year.

Yeah, I mean, people hurt people. It's an unfortunate consequence of the fall because we don't always know how to handle things or what to do in situations. You lash out sometimes.

Yep, and I'm sure I will hurt and disappoint people again this year. It'll be really fun. Actually, it'll probably be terrifying. But what would be really fun is if there was a tally list that God would send you at the end of the year. You know, like, this is how many times you hurt people this year.

Like I said, I keep a record of wrongs for myself sometimes, which is terrible. I don't advise doing it, guys. I grew up in a very work based household. So at one point in my walk, I thought I had to work harder to earn salvation. And I burnt myself out and I heard a ton of people in the process. And then there was reconciliation, praise the Lord. But there was a lot of pain and a lot of things that shouldn't have happened. And I said I did a lot of things I shouldn't have said I did in my work-based salvation.

So let me tell you, you don't do good works to get saved.

You do good works because you are saved and it's an overflow. But... so i i know and i look back and i kind of beat myself up and i'm like that's not god that is that is not god um but like it's it's tough because i don't want to make those same mistakes again

Yeah, that's hard when you continue to make the same mistake and you do know it and you keep doing it. What's more fortunate at times is when you're making a mistake and someone points it out to you in love and you're unaware of it and then you're able to adjust and change and grow. That's a blessing when that happens.

that's always so sweet when they come to you in love yes not in like i'm better than you not in i'm holier but like hey like i love you and because i love you i've noticed this thing um yeah yeah it's so sweet yeah and and the thing is is there's a difference in tone and tenor because they could say exactly the same thing and be judgmental uh yeah i've been there

Right. So it's not the words. It's it's their their actions and behavior that tip the hand of where are they coming from? Yeah. Are they are the person that does that to other people and other people are afraid to hear what they have to say? Or a different way of I'm trying to remember who said it, but. People are either happy when you enter the room or people are happy when you leave the room. So which which are you for people? Are you the are you the one that makes everybody's face light up when you come or when you go?

So I've been both. But, like, I can admit it, right? And that's my thing. Like, I'm like, I wasn't, I'm not always like this, like, straight-laced, always been perfect, always been Jesus-loving. Like, even when I was Jesus-loving, like, there were moments in my walk where people were happier when I left the room. And, like, I get it, because I was super legalistic. So, like, beating the law with a hammer, like, that's not how Jesus does things. That's how I wanted to do things.

Well, and if you're just trying to control the sin that you have and all that you're doing is a sin modification system, you're taking it out of Jesus' hands for what he's already done for you.

Yeah.

You know, I don't need a sin management system. I need Jesus.

my gosh uh pat the pastor's talking about james he says the bible isn't like a sin management program it's a sin eradication like it's not a like you know like i'm gonna sin on monday friday and saturday and go to church on sunday and then go back to the same sin on those days every week he's like there's a break of covenant there and you should probably figure out why that you're still doing that thing he's like no no human is perfect and we all fall short however if you're continuing to repeat the same sin over and over again why and so he's like it's not it's not like a you know management program jesus wants to like cleanse you

yeah we we we do often as christians try you know manage it for other people manage it for ourselves talk about how good we are yeah justify it or you know excuse it it's not hurting anyone yeah it's hurting you

and i think that goes like back to like uh loving oneself right is like so often we can't admit that we're hurting ourselves and when someone called out that not loving yourself is sinful because the the lord says love your neighbor as yourself how can i love my neighbor if i don't love myself well because that's gonna that's gonna trickle over eventually that's gonna come out that like i'm loving out of a half empty cup um and i'm not i'm not necessarily for like all like the me me me stuff but i do think like there is some responsibility of like taking care of yourself like eating well exercising taking a shower being communion with other believers like i do think like there are there is something important about loving yourself well and like that means like you know maybe go buying a new pair of shoes because your sneakers are holy um and things like that um because people see that and They know.

Right. There is a level at caring for yourself. Yeah. And one of the best examples that is out there, and I wish there was a better one because it's annoying that every time I get on an airplane, they have to tell me this after years and years and years and hundreds and thousands of miles flown, but they still have to tell me every time I get on, in the event of an emergency, put your mask on first. and then help the person next to you yes i know this i i i first heard it you know when i was probably a kid you know years before i even got on an airplane i knew this okay nobody has to hear this this is this is common knowledge it's it's also regulations and they're not going to stop so i'm complaining i'm complaining for no reason but the point is it's not selfish to put your mask on first It is necessary because if you are in the process of helping someone else and you pass out, you've done neither you nor them any good.

Exactly.

And so I need to, if we go back to what was in the chat earlier, if I need to find the plank in my own eye, I need to do that first before pulling the speck out of somebody else's eye. And so it's not about sin management. It is about reflection on who I am so that I can be more a reflection of the one that loves me and the one that I love and the one that died for me and the one that died for everyone else. and so that's that's that's the the level of what you want to strive to be not a oh i'm gonna i'm gonna be more righteous than everybody else because look at look at all the good stuff that i i have done uh it just doesn't work that way no uh i just gotta say this right quick to sunshine baby can't eat if mama isn't well fed oh yes yeah i i i saw that on the corner i didn't read the full thing yeah Yeah, that's so true. If mom who has a child who is nursing is not feeding herself and caring for herself, the child is going to struggle and suffer and neither one of them is going to survive. Oh, that's so good, Sunshine.

Yeah.

That's so good. Thanks for pausing and getting that. I was just going to redirect this.

No, you're good. I saw that and I felt like I need to say something to that because that's so good.

Yeah, and maybe one of those things that we do at times is run ahead of pointing out the things that we think others can fix when we don't know how to fix the problems we have.

yeah because sometimes it's so easy rather than looking in a mirror and trying to figure out how to fix our problems to see someone else's problem and be like i know how to fix that so let me go help them rather than like helping yourself first so sometimes we can be judgmental because we see a problem that's like boy that's an easy problem to fix you should just fix that now you shouldn't have like it should be fixed and you never have that problem again well if it was easy for them they would have probably already fixed it Oh my gosh. A great example I have of this is when I was in ministry school, uh, there was a pastor who helped this young man get a job to start earning money, to start supporting his family, but he never taught him how to manage the money. And so this kid, he was like 18 first job trying to take care of his household. So like he had a little brother trying to care for his mom was spending his money on like frivolous things because he hadn't had money before. Right. And so the pastor got mad at him and yelled at him. And then the Lord convicted him and said, you didn't teach him. He's like, I sent you to teach him how to do this. And rather than teaching him, you judged him. And the pastor repented and apologized to this kid and then sat down and said, hey, let me teach you how to manage a checkbook. Let me teach you how to pay bills. Let me teach you like how to like be financially wise. And so sometimes like we'll fix one problem, but not teach how to maintain. and i i'm i'm guilty of this and so like then they fall and then we get mad like well why didn't you know well if you don't teach someone something or someone's ever been exposed to like you know that before how are they to know yeah like you don't know what you don't know well not only that

But there is relational equity that you have to spend to help someone get out of the circumstance they're in. And we're usually too busy to do that. We want to just be able to. I was going to make this point earlier. We're more comfortable with just giving to the church money sometimes and feeling like we did enough. And we don't actually want to be relationally involved with the people that need the help. And so it'd been so much easier in that situation to judge the person for not doing what was right. I did all of this work to get him a job, and now he's squandering what I gave him. I'm through with him rather than realizing I didn't do enough. And I need to I need to invest more to change the circumstance than a simple fix that I thought would do it all. We're we're pretty good at that. And I would say in society today, I just want to give something to the problem that doesn't fully solve it, but we don't want to give the time to invest in people that it's required for it.

Yeah. It's like putting a bandaid on something and hoping that it'll go away because the bandage falls off and the wound's still there.

Yeah. I'm just, I'm sorry. I'm just picturing. Cause I, cause I, we often have this conversation around here because we have a bike trail and doing CPR. And what do you do if someone, if someone is injured and bleeding and my wife has actually come up and I come across someone who, fell down, had a concussion, and we had to call 911. So we have those conversations regularly. It's kind of like, oh, yeah, you fell down. You probably have a concussion. Let me give you a band-aid. You can get back on your bike and go down the trail again. Like, how irresponsible would that have been? Oh, for real. And not helpful to just say, let me help you back on your bike. Don't fall over again. That's a dumb thing to do.

Probably an idiot if they have a concussion and they're going to fall over. Right, right.

It was like, no, we stayed with them until the ambulance showed up. And then what was really cool, we didn't end up doing this because we had bikes of our own. One of the ambulance people that showed up asked where he was at, took the bicycles in his own vehicle to drop them off. so that he could get the bicycles into his car so he could go to the emergency room. I can remember if it was husband or wife, whichever way it was, the one that fell, so that all vehicles could be there and the other could be present. It was beautiful. It was beautiful. It was, I'm going to do what is necessary to give you everything you are in need of in your circumstance of need right now.

Come on.

Yeah. Yeah. That was super cool.

Yeah.

uh we were yeah and we we've mentioned a few times i was going to go back to this we mentioned reach conference a few times how were were you at the first reach or just the one that was last year oh okay no i wasn't at the first conference because i thought it was a mormon convention I don't know how that idea came across.

I live with some very weird people, okay? And it was a whole thing and a half. And I don't know how we got there either. Okay.

We'll put a pin in that thought. Okay, so you weren't there first year. Okay.

No, no. I just wanted to share why. I had to confess that at least somebody once in my life. You're the first person that I've confessed to. Of course you have to confess to people.

It's out there on the internet. You know what?

Roman, if you ever hear this, don't judge me. I'm sorry.

No, no, no. It's going to be one of the, whatever the game show is next year, it's going to be one of the answers on the game show now is who thought that Reach was a Mormon convention? The answer is...

I would die.

To quote... Jean-Luc Picard, make it so.

Make it so. Oh, please. Somebody get with Romans about that because I don't think I would lose my composure. I would be on the floor doubled over belly laughing. Oh, no. I know what it means.

I know what it needs to be. You know when they're doing the scavenger hunt thing? That's where it needs to be. It needs to be in the scavenger hunt. So I've not participated in the scavenger hunt, but I have helped people along the way, and there's some really obscure questions, and you've got to go find the person that's the answer to it. That's what it needs to be. You're going to be part of that scavenger hunt now.

Oh, yes. I'll also message Aki or Romans. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Someone will remind me later.

Yep, yep. That definitely needs to be a thing.

That is gold.

That'll be like, there's going to be so many laughs when they get to that. Here's the clue. Oh, there's going to be somebody laughs. And there's so many people going, what? Who? There's going to be no clue unless you listen to this podcast. There we go.

Yeah. It'll literally be golden. It'll be like a golden nugget. Oh, yeah.

That'll be, oh.

I laughed so hard I cried. Thank you.

And this is why you stay two hours into the podcast, friends. This is why you stay.

This is where you get the good stuff.

This is where you get the good stuff. We are off the rails. We don't know where we're going. And we have no idea what's next. I missed it.

Hey, Mama Bricks.

I know that you were early on in the server for, in the Discord server for Reach. So where and how did you get connected with Reach?

My sister. She found out about it and she messaged Roman a ton of cosplay questions. And so I sometimes just get dragged along in her whims. And this was one of her whims. And I'm like, oh, that's kind of cool. I guess I'll check it out. And then she's like, oh, we're going to that, by the way. And I was like, oh, okay, that's cool. And then I found out about the partnership thing. And I was like, do I apply? Because I'm like, I'm not necessarily a Christian streamer. I'm a streamer who's Christian. And she's like, well, try it. So then I messaged Roman about applications to be a Twitch, a reach partner and how that all works. And then I got signed on. And then that's how that happened. I found out from Corky who found out from, I don't remember how she found out actually. Lucky Mama Ricks.

I'll just ask her when she's on. So we don't need to have you answer her question. She'll be able to answer that. So you just have to stay tuned for that podcast.

yeah but i felt like uh because we had obviously we had heard about it prior um with thinking what it was um and then um we uh demo we learned that it wasn't and then uh i was like oh i'll check it out that's that sounds pretty cool and then i like just I'm so glad.

Well, I will say, I went to REACH the first year. I was early on in conversations with Romans. We mentioned earlier, I don't know if it was on the podcast or it was before we went live, that... uh i i had met romans several years before reach conference and so when he said hey uh we're thinking about doing alpha i'm like i already was planning on doing alpha and check trying to do that on my stream so i'm like yeah i'm in i'm on board what do you need how can i help i got training for alpha i want to say in 2006 and so i have done alpha program at three churches at least maybe four churches And I was like, yeah, I want to do that online. That sounds great.

I think that would work.

So I was an early one who was on board and trying to say, yeah, I think this is a great thing. I had already been working to try to connect streamers together and love the different communities that we're developing. So I'm like, yeah, there's another one. I'll be there. This will be wonderful. So I didn't expect when all of a sudden there was, hey, we're going to do cosplay. And there were a few people that were VTubers the first year. And I don't know a lot of the VTubers. That's not where I usually spent like watch. And maybe it's more VTubers around in the evening and I'm more on in the morning or afternoon. yeah and i just a lot of youtubers stream in the evening right so i just didn't run into as many vtubers perhaps so when i was talking about doing cosplay uh i'm like yeah i could do that let me let me see about that and so i hung out in that channel a lot and and then got to watch the conversations going on about cosplay and connecting and doing all that i was like Boy, I guess I'm full on in this. And then I did not know I was going to cosplay every day to start with.

I was so happy that you did.

And then it was like, all right. And you were all talking about, well, I've got one for morning and one for afternoon. And, oh, my goodness. I'm like, I don't have that many.

No, so Corky and I have been running the anime circuit since, like, 2012. So, like, we've been running the anime circuit since we were teenagers. So, like, part of the issue is, like, when you go to those conventions, like, people are always changing. You have people who don't. Like, I'm one of the people who usually don't. I'll bring a costume to wear and then normal clothes to change into when I'm just done with it. And then you have my sister, people like my sister, who change three times in a day. And both are fine. Both are fine.

Yeah.

So anyway, I'm like, okay, I'm going to do this. And I got one costume. I was like, this isn't going to fit anybody's theme. But I was going to Ren Faire with my kids, and we decided to go to Kilt Weekend. So I'm like, oh, I'm going to buy that, and I'll be able to use it for Reach. And there are other occasions I'll be able to use it, and that'll be fun. Okay, so I'm going to do that. And then it was like, okay, I've got to have – another one, and I did Tim for an event. Knowing that I was going to go to Reach and knowing that cosplay was going to happen, I held a local event to do cosplay. It was a horrible attendance. Nobody knew what it was and all of that.

You tried, though.

Yeah, I tried, and the advertisement was a problem. But, hey, I had fun. Oh, we got another rig coming in.

Webby! Webby!

Webby is one of my favorite people.

Yeah, Webby Pumpkin coming in. I'll wait until they start posting. I'll finish my thought while they come in. So I did that event, did that there, and then it was like, okay, the theme started coming out, and I was like, oh, I need to have one that's more gamer-focused. So that's when I ended up doing The Witcher, and my wife and I did The Witcher for Halloween before went to Reach. So it's like, okay, and I'm already planning on – When The Witcher, the new one which has been promised for years, finally comes out, I'm going to cosplay and play at the same time. That's going to be fun.

You mean like a game?

Yeah, yeah, the Witcher game. They've been talking about one in the works for a long time, and it's supposed to be out soon-ish. When it happens, I don't know. But I'm going to get it right away, and I'm going to cosplay and play.

Are you going to stream it or no?

Oh, yeah, I'm streaming the whole thing. It'll be a blast.

I suck at playing the Witcher games. I tried, but I love watching people play those games.

Yeah, well, I just figured it's going to be fun to be dressed as the Witcher, playing the Witcher. So welcome in, Webby Pumpkin. Hey, love you both. Love you too, man. Great to see you. I hope you were doing well. Yeah, it looks good, but you never played any of the Witchers, so you're super behind. Yeah. You saw the trailer for yesterday. Ooh. I'm on the Discord. I did not see anything under the official news, but that might not go there. I wish you could get Witcher 1 to work. Oh, sorry to hear that. Okay, let me give a shout out to Webby Pumpkin here.

Good to see you, friend. Webby, I got to say this. Your intro song is so catchy. I love it. It's so cute.

Glad to have you here. Hope you had a great time over there. It doesn't tell me what you were streaming.

What were you streaming? Clear Expedition 33.

Oh, I've been playing that recently. It's a good game. I like it.

I'm a big Webby fan. We love Webby in this house.

Hey, it's all good. Webby was one of the ones that I knew before Reach, but not by much. Like I more knew of him and we connected the first Reach and it was like, you know, that whole thing. Actually, I don't know if you experienced this too with people that you knew that you've never met in person and you saw them at Reach. How was that experience for you? I'll just ask it that way.

Wait, say that again. I'm sorry.

So people that you knew, either that you watched them, like Webby Pumpkin, or you knew them in Discord, what was it like to get together in person with people that you knew that were streamers?

So I actually met Webby at Reach for the first time. But other people that I had met in the Discord, it was like meeting long-lost friends for me. One of my things is like a lot of my friends have always been online. So running the anime circuits and like doing different conventions, it was always an opportunity for me to meet my friends that I've never seen face to face. And so when I went to reach, I'm just like, oh man, like these are people that I know and that I love. And now I get to look upon their face and see them. And I'm like, oh, how sweet is this? And so it was less awkward for me. Some, some of it was a little awkward. Cause like, I'm just like, I forgot. like being a vtuber i don't i didn't always know who was who oh right and so uh funnily enough there was one person i think at reach who didn't believe that i was there who thought i was lying and thought i was quirky and they're like oh i didn't know you were here you're you're kidding you're not actually katie you're quirky and i was like what

Yeah, it's interesting, though, because it's a different experience when it's just meeting somebody that you might know elsewhere in person and you've never met them before. When you watch somebody for hours or you hang out or they hang out in your chat for hours or you hang out in Discord for hours, you have real relationships that have developed. And it's on some level, and this might sound strange to people that have never experienced it. It's kind of like getting together with your best friends from high school or college. It's like a reunion that you're having. And it's the first time you've met people. But it's that level of excitement of getting together. It's like a reunion of, hey, we're getting everybody together. And it's just fantastic.

So, like, my roommate, one roommate I knew well. Two roommates I, one roommate I knew well because it was my sister. One roommate has been in my community and Corky's for a while. And then one was completely new. But it was so sweet. Like, it was, like, the best weekend because, like. we we actually stayed out like there was like this little fire pit on the church and me um dragon can who's a friend for my community and like a couple of people just sat and talked for hours about like hard topic stuff and i think that was my favorite part about reach because i love dialoguing with people like i talked to you i talked to webby neko spy dragon kin sugar chapone um aki a little bit but he was super busy so it was hard to grab him um and like so many other people like i wanted to go to panels instead i stood around and talked for hours Getting to know people and talking Bible and getting to meet the people who like sponsored the coffee and talking to the people who were like, you know, from the church and getting to know them a little bit. And it was so lovely. 1010, if you want good fellowship and to make wholesome friends, come to Reach.

Oh, absolutely. And and there's like I'm on other conventions and things and they all have their own uniqueness to them around that. And other conventions will have this, too, that I've been at that are Christian conventions and nerdy conventions. You'll stay up late and talk. But it was oh, my goodness, the Airbnb I was at. I didn't go to bed before 3 a.m. uh yeah the whole time and then i was up at at 6 6 30 every like i got three hours of sleep a night max uh the whole time i was there and it was like by the time sunday night rolled around and my flight was canceled and i wasn't going home i just crashed uh in in the uh the hotel before getting up and coming home so it was it was like Like, you are present, but there is FOMO. Because if I, like, my youngest had this as a kid. He always thought the good stuff happened after he went to bed. And so he would not go to bed because he thought all the good conversations happened after he went to bed. All the fun happened after he went to bed. And it was so true. It was like staying up with a conversation, suddenly looking at the clock and going, oh my goodness, it's 1.30, 2 o'clock, we should go to bed. And then talking for another hour and a half before you finally go, okay, okay, we're going to bed now. I've got to go and do that. And we did it the year before in the hotel lobby.

Yeah, that's the one thing I heard about that I missed. I talk to Mama Peaches a lot. door her uh she's like yeah we we would all stay up late in the hotel lobby and um we we i went to with the exception of like i think the second and third night i went to bed at a reasonable time the first night i had to because we drove and i was like everyone's like come to waffle house i'm like guys i can't keep my eyes open i'm gonna fall asleep in my waffle if i order waffle i gotta be real like if i can fall asleep on my own streams i can fall asleep in a waffle at waffle house surrounded by friends okay

Well, I haven't fallen asleep in a stream yet. I have.

Oh, my. It's okay. So the one time I fell asleep, it was micro sleep. I was doing a 24 hour stream. I hit like 18 hours or so. And I'm like, I literally just, I couldn't like, I was like, guys, I gotta take a two hour nap. Like, cause it was like, eyes closed, jerk awake. I closed. I feel like whiplash. And then the other time was like the other day, Elaine and I were streaming on our other channel and I have been having a hard time sleeping. I'm just like up late, like processing, like, I'm a day person by trade, night owl by nature. And so my conversation with the Lord usually happen at night. And so I've just been like awake until like sometimes almost midnight and I have to be awake at 4 a.m. And so I'm just like, she just kept, and I knew if I had said, I'm tired, I want to go to bed, she would have stopped streaming. And she was having so much fun. I'm like, no. And then I got a headache and my eyes closed and I was out like a light for like 10 minutes.

Well, when I was younger, I definitely was a night owl. I was never a morning person. However, that's where I am now. I'm a morning person. I get up. I like to be up on schedule, even on the weekends. I just feel like my day is wasted if I don't get up early.

Yeah, I feel that.

But I do not get up as early as my mom, who... gets up at 4 a.m., and she's retired, and she still gets up at 4 a.m. No, on my off days, I get up about 7, 7.30.

Yeah. Which, I mean, I would ideally like to get up at 9, but then I feel like my day is wasted.

Yeah.

Because I have to go to bed at a reasonable hour, whatever that means.

Yeah, whatever reasonable means, yes. So... So anyway, back to Reach. Other than the meeting of people and the excitement of that and having all those conversations, was there anything else that's just a takeaway from Reach that helped you as a streamer or helped you in your faith?

honestly yeah caitlyn glass's talk okay um for those of you who don't know caitlyn glass is uh a director and a voice actor in the anime community and she's a christian and the anime community is largely secular and she's just like guys i'm just me i love jesus i love my friends i go to work and she talks about like how they're having moments where she's taken roles and things she regrets, but then she learns how it's impacted others. And she's like, in hindsight, I wish I wouldn't have taken those roles, but then I learned how they've impacted others. And she's like, they're still not great roles, and I don't love them. And I'm just like, I'm sitting there, I'm like, man, like, how many times have I've done something or like, you know, like... the streaming space is largely secular, right? But I'm like, I just like, it was so encouraging to just love the Lord, be who he made you to be and love people. and like that helped me so much because i'm just like look she can she's doing what she loves she's honoring the lord she loves the lord she tries to do all things to honor him and she acknowledges that sometimes she doesn't because we all fall short but she she goes to work and she loves people and she acknowledges that her and her co-workers have disagreements on certain things they don't always see eye to eye but it's not like you don't have to like go out with a bible and beat someone on the head to be a light in the world

And Peter says, always be prepared to give a reason for the hope that you have. We were talking about hope earlier at the beginning. And it's that level of, if I'm not living a way that is demonstrating either something different about me, then people aren't going to ask me about the hope I have. So living as a Christian, as we're talking about, being a streamer who is a Christian is an important role that's needed because there are people who will never go to a stream where the person says, I'm Christian right up front. Now, there's a difference of hiding it and brushing it off and being ashamed and not talking about it. But when it's like, yeah, I am.

um yeah i have i i specifically used a christian tag not because i'm a christian streamer but because i want people to know like i'll randomly share things about god in my like or we'll be playing a game and like i'm like oh this relates to the bible in this way and so i don't want people to be taken off guard like oh she's like a believer i want them to know that i'm not hiding it it's not always a prevalent conversation but there are moments where there are teaching lessons and video games that are applicable

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. There's, yeah, like SuperSonic said, as your church pastor recently said, always keep your oil lamp lit. Yes.

Yeah.

And the best way I can describe it was when I was... newly married, had lost my job and getting asked by the, our church was large enough to have a middle school pastor and a senior high pastor. And they were both asking me to volunteer with the Sunday school classes they were teaching or volunteer with the youth group. And I didn't know what was different about them. But I didn't like if they asked me, I didn't ask what it was. I said yes, because I got to spend time around them, even if it was the five to 10 minutes beforehand and the five to 10 minutes afterwards. And whatever volunteer role I had, it was like I wanted to spend time with these guys. They had something I didn't know and I didn't understand. And so hanging out and being around them was such a value to me as. a young dad and they're younger than me. So it wasn't like, you know, the only thing for instance they had was a better relationship with Jesus than I had.

I think that's what the Bible means to it. It says provoke those to jealousy.

Yeah.

I'm like, cause I'm like, I've met people like that. I'm like, I want to be around you because you know, a part of God that I don't. And I want to learn that part. So, yeah.

Yeah, it was absolutely that. And I have later got to tell those guys that and share that with them. And I've been able to share that with other people. We were talking earlier, though, too. It's like, you know, we don't always get to know the impact we have on people. People come in our streams, and maybe we just provided them peace and love for a moment that they needed it, and they're never going to be on the same time we are again, or they're never going to come back into our stream. Like we've had two raids today, and maybe there was someone in those streams that made it over here for this conversation that needed to be here today, and they're never going to come back. I don't know. But I hope that our conversation was seasoned with salt and filled with light so that it did something to impact them.

yeah so um you asked me earlier if like uh my community has blessed me i think one of the biggest blessings that i get from my community is when they're like hey can i dm you a personal prayer request yeah that's like really like personal and close to their heart and i'm just like the fact that you like trust me enough to be like can you pray for me in this way i'm just like oh man jesus let me steward this well

I totally agree with that. Now, as a pastor, I get a lot of people that do it directly in my stream, and it's part of my stream, but it's still that same thing. And I usually do in my stream say, thank you for trusting this community, because they're shared in the stream, trusting the whole community with this prayer request. Even though I'm the one praying for you, they are praying with me and you trust us with that. And it's amazing how many people who are not Christians will show up, feel like it's a safe place to share something, even if they're not asking for prayer. And then when you say, can we pray for you? They're like, sure.

yeah i think like you jay and like a handful of other streamers have a like because i i noticed how you guys pray on stream like you'll stop and like pray for the prayer request i started doing that in my streams so like when people ask for prayer on stream i'll stop it i'll pray for that prayer request um sometimes it has to wait if i'm in a good spot to do so because video gaming right right but like i've been more intentional about that and it's been so sweet um so like thank you guys for doing that and encouraging that and i think that's one of the blessings of like meeting y'all one of the blessings from meeting all that reach is like seeing that walked out in elegance and love

And that's part of what the body is supposed to do. We sharpen each other by what we do and the examples we set. And if you'd never thought about it, would you automatically assume that you'd be able to do that on stream? Some people might, but others won't until they see it done. And so we get to be examples. We get to be encouragement. We get to be, you know, like if there wasn't, you know, you and your sister doing the cosplay and leading that, it probably wouldn't have happened. And then look at... she was so excited look at look at look at what happened uh also i'll say leading the way too uh b gilbert who who has not yet been on the podcast someday someday he'll be on here he was the first talk by the streamers and there was talks by streamers as well as the talks by really well-known uh uh you know i'll say celebrities for lack of a better word but, you know, like your normal conference speakers. It's like, oh, yeah, your person who's in the audience getting to go up and actually, you know, give a talk. And so he was the first one, and he was cosplaying as Thor, and he gave his talk, and I was planning to not cosplay for my talk, and then I was the first talk of the next day, but then the times all got switched around, and it was like, I'm the first thing of the day? Well, then I don't have time to, you know... you know, come do my talk and get dressed later and do this. Like, all right, I guess, I guess I'm going to give my talk in cosplay, which I, which I never thought about before.

I think Prey did hers in cosplay too, right? I think Pri did her talk in cosplay too, right?

Yes, Pri did her talk in cosplay too. So I know at least three of us did. Then there was more cosplay that happened for games that happened as well or talk shows that happened. And it was like, okay, so this wasn't just a side thing of we're over here doing this. It became a we're part of the whole community as we do this. And that was kind of like the unexpected thing that was like, I had no plans of doing that. Also, you know, we're in a church. I want to be respectful. What was funny, though, no, I didn't do mine as Garrett. I was dressed as Tim the Enchanter. And so as Tim the Enchanter, if you don't know Tim the Enchanter, has horns on and dressed in red and black. And so Romans came up and said, can you announce before your talk that you're not Satan?

i think that was one of the things so like when my sister approached me after talking to romans about how she was gonna help head up cosplay i looked at her and like that's been an answer to prayer for you because you've been praying to help a convention with cosplay for so long and so when she got to do it and she got to talk to like romans and aki and emmy and really like figure out the rules and bounce ideas off of people and i think she did it so beautifully of like anyone can cosplay yes but there's a godly there's there's a godly way to cosplay and uh there are rules for modesty's sake uh because i think some like i think modesty is subjective but i also think certain things are inherently in modest um and so um the way she handled it was very well and so when cosplay became what it was at reach i know it was a answer prayer for her and it was so sweet to see it finally fulfilled

and um yeah i was i was very very happy for her i did not know that that's very cool i i love how god will do that so this is this to go back to part of the conversation we were just i was just mentioning about the two uh you know youth pastors that i wanted to be around well then when when um you know i first i got a step more involved and i started doing drama ministry it was like um so yeah i i i took over doing drama ministry for for my church uh we hadn't been doing drama for very long but i started doing it it was like i had no idea god could take something i love and let me do it for the kingdom And it was like, yeah, I can dress in a costume, be up on stage, and deliver a message that's going to impact people's lives. It was like... Oh yeah. That, that was something that was cool. So it's so, so the cosplay almost brings that back around for me on a level of it's, it's almost like, like cosplay wasn't a thing back when I was in college and in drama, or I probably would have been doing it all along. It wasn't a thing yet. So there, there I'm outing myself of how old I am, but that's okay.

young in spirit uh yeah yeah like it's it's it's amazing how young people think i am and i just have to laugh when like nope i'm not that young but my pastor kind of how old i was because we went and met his wife because we had we quirky wanted to share something with him on sunday and they're like so how old are you guys and we shared and they're like no and i was like yeah they're like we thought you were like 21. i'm like i get that a lot

Yeah, it's good at times and it's bad at times.

I mean, hey, when I'm like 60, I'll look like I'm 40, so I'll take it.

I will say, however, and this is super weird and irrelevant, but I was never carded until I was 40. Yeah, and I have been carded more times than I can count in the last five years. So it's like people have just, and this is my opinion, have become disrespectful of being able to judge people. They don't believe people can judge people age. There is no way that anybody thinks I'm under 21. What I feel when you card me is you are believing that I am deceptive and lying to you. I don't feel like you are congratulating me on my looks. I feel like you're insulting me that I am deceptive and I am trying to pull a fast one. I'm doing something illegal. I am not. I wasn't carded until after I was 40. So now I feel very bad. And you know what I usually do as a real weather, whatever it is, if you card me, I will not purchase it. Other than places like the grocery store that card everybody because they got to enter it in the computer, you know?

Yeah. I personally wouldn't card you. So no offense. But, oh, my gosh, it was this one time when I was a teenager and I was a cashier and I generally couldn't tell this woman's age. Because I wasn't good at reading ages at that point because I was a new cashier. And so I asked for her ID and she got so offended. And I was like, ma'am, I generally don't know how old you are. I'm like, I'm not trying to be rude. I'm not trying to, like, make your life difficult. Like, I'm new to this, and I don't want to risk my job. So can I please have your ID? Or I'm going to have to, like, I can't sell you this because I'm unsure. And so she hopefully handed me her ID. But I'm like, most times there are signs that you can tell. But like, yeah, I definitely feel like people have gone to carding everyone or like, especially like, I don't want to say older people in the sense of like old people, but people who are like above the age of carding.

Oh, yeah.

Because they're like, they either don't want to offend people or like, it's stupid. It's stupid.

Yeah. We're just on a side topic there for no reason. Yeah. Whatever. All right, well then, just coming back, is there anything that we haven't talked about that you would like to share?

I don't think so.

Okay. I always give people that opportunity because maybe God put something on your heart, or maybe as you're thinking about things, you're like, hey, here's some important things for people to know. So I like to at least give you that opportunity to be able to do that.

Oh, and you know what? Here's what I'll say. Like God, God made you in his image and you're fearfully and wonderfully made and each of us are different. And that's okay. If you like, if you like video games, if you like reading mythology books, if you like reading church history books, like. God made you with your interest for a reason, and he can use that to reach people for the kingdom. So don't shed away from who you are, and don't let the world tell you that you have to be different. Pursue God first, and he'll make your path straight.

There you go. Fantastic.

Well, I have had me preaching at myself.

Well, that's pretty much true. That's pretty much true that that most of the time you have to preach the message to yourself before you can deliver it to people. And there's been plenty of times where I'm like, I don't want to say this. I don't want to bring this. And yet that's what God will give me is here's what you need. I'm like, but I haven't done it. Yeah, you need to do that. And it's really hard to give a message that you are not living.

yeah it is we all need to remind ourselves of scripture i pray that the lord writes like for him to write his word upon my heart i need to be in the word so he can bring it to remembrance and actually write it upon my heart it's not like he he can't write something that i don't know um so yeah

Well, I hope everybody here has had a wonderful time hanging out today. If you want to take a peek and see if there's somebody that is live right now that we can bless and rate out to, I usually let the guests do that. And if we're both streaming, we'll do a double rate. And if not, we'll just go somewhere and bless everybody else.

Oh my gosh, there's so many people on right now. Who do I usually not raid that I could raid that would be a blessing? Lady Lark and Ginger are streaming.

I do not know them.

Oh, Lady Lark is great. So is Mr. Ginger. It looks like they're doing Bible stuff.

Okay. You want to spell that in the chat? Because as I look, I'm not finding it.

No, you're good. I got you. I'm copying and pasting it now.

Okay, there we go. There we go. We can raid over there. So this podcast will be out to anybody who's here. It'll be a while. So I streamed all the new episodes to start with. I began in December, and the first one will be out next week. So if you just figure all that time, we're at the beginning of January. You've got about four or five episodes that will be out before this one does. And that gives me so when I go to a conference and I'm gone for a week, if I miss an episode, I've got plenty and we won't we won't miss a week of the podcast coming out. So, yeah, it's it's been fun doing that. Like every conversation has been so unique and different. It's, it's truly a blessing. And I get to know people like we had, we had several conversations that reach long conversations and I'm still learning and getting to know you better. It's one of those things. I wish I could sit and hang out in people's streams all the time and ask all kinds of questions. It's just easier to get you on a podcast or in a conversation and just sit there and chat.

Hey, if you ever want to have me back on, I'm game.

Well, I may have to do a different themed podcast or have people on my own channel. But this one, I really want to stay as niche as I am of, hey, come on and tell me how you got started on Twitch and what you're doing. But I may have anniversary ones where I'll do a panel or something like that.

You know what you could do for your personal channel? You could have the twin and I on and ask us about what it's like being a twin.

Ooh, okay. We could look at that. uh i was going to say the the other thing i i i had preface at the beginning stay till the end i've got something uh to to to tell you so so far i've had twitch streamers on and asked them about being a twitch streamer and and this week i i was thinking about There are other people that are so valuable in the Twitch community that are mods and are never going to be a streamer and have no plans on being a streamer. So I'm planning on the month of March to have Now, I don't know how this is all going to work out, how many I'll have, but I'll probably do a panel of two or three mods that are mods. So I might need some help finding more mods than I know from different channels, but I'm specifically looking for mods that do not stream. So I know plenty of people that mod that are also a streamer, but I want mods that do not stream.

I think I know one I could recommend.

Yeah, that'd be great. So I'm going to start posting in different places around that. I'm going to start with my mod 5looses, who's not here. She usually is. With her, she doesn't stream. And so I want to bring her on and do that. So I'm going to find a time that works for her to do that. But my thought is to be able to do it through the month of March, have some mods on. I don't know if I'll be able to get four episodes. Maybe it'll be two or three. But I want to do more than one and highlight some of them because they're so valuable in the community. And it could also be a Discord mod, too. It doesn't have to be a streamer mod. I know. because i definitely know a discord mod okay uh you could uh i'll reach out to him and connect y'all if he's interested yeah yeah like i said i'm gonna post it on the church digital's discord i'll post it in my own discord and when i'm trying to do those and invite people in but if you know someone they are always welcome to dm me and i'll you know we'll try to make it work out i figure doing a panel because if you're a mod you may not be used to talking and holding a conversation like a streamer does so i figure a panel that's small Will be a better way to do that than just straight up saying, hey, let me ask you a question. And your answer is yes, no. And that doesn't make for a great interview.

That's one thing that you have to learn as a streamer. You have to learn how to talk. It's not every streamer starts that way. I definitely didn't.

And some of us are already talking for a living. And then we decided to be streamers. And it's like, I don't have any problem holding a monologue for two hours. But it's a whole lot more fun to have a dialogue.

yes that's true all right any any last words and then i'll start the raid um remember to eat food drink water and get sleep because you are important and so is your health there you go

All right, thank you, thank you, thank you, everyone, for being here. I'll roll the credits, and you'll be able to see when the next podcasts are coming up. I believe next Wednesday, the following Wednesday, and it might even be the Wednesday after that. It's going to be really weird, three Wednesdays in a row. But that's what we have coming the rest of the month. There'll be a new episode available on Spotify, which the first intro, it's just an intro. It's two minutes, so it won't take you long to watch on Spotify. But otherwise, you can go find all the VODs over on YouTube. So just look for Control-Alt-Redeem, and you'll be able to find us. And eventually, we'll be in other spaces as well for the podcast. So thank you, everybody. It's been a blessing to have all of you. Great conversation in the chat. And Katie Bug, thank you so much. Appreciate you.

Yeah, thank you for having me. This was so lovely.

It is. It is so much fun just to sit and chat. Have a blessed evening. I'm going to go find the podcast you did yesterday as well with Adorable Will. That's going to be a blessing.