Breaking the Churchy Barrier: Faith Without the Formality

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

Leighton Seys: Well, welcome in everybody to Control-Alt-Redeem Podcast. Those that do not know, I am Flat Cap Dapper Pastor. I work with an organization called The Church Digital, and we are working to help equip people in digital spaces to be missionaries, be disciples, and be the very light of Christ in those spaces. So in this podcast, we're looking to reset the culture and redeem the space. specifically of Twitch, where I hang out. And Bearded Baywolf, you hang out here as well. So glad to have you in here today.

Bearded Baywolf: Well, I'm so glad to be here. I tell you, this is something I've been looking forward to. I think we had conversations a couple months back, and schedules never wanted to line up initially. You know, it's funny how life just kind of gets away from us. But to actually be able to be on here now, I'm super excited. This is something I've been looking forward to all week. I know the community's been looking forward to this. And, yeah, trying to equip those in the digital mission, which I've always said is like the final frontier, so to speak, of mission work is... something that nobody really has the actual best practices for. I mean, we were talking earlier, you know, there's four or five different ways to get this thing set up. It might not necessarily be the first way to get it set up, but still sharing the gospel, loving people, that's the important thing, and equipping people to know how to do it, that they all have a purpose in this mission field as well.

Leighton Seys: I love the idea of best practices instead of the one way to do it. And one of the reasons I love it is because you need to adapt it to your space and your culture. So when you and I talk about best practices and we might be in North America, we talk with other people about those same best practices in Africa, they have to adapt them because they're not best practices there. But what we learn from their best practices could improve our best practices and ours could improve theirs or whatever category you're in. There are certain things to learn about if you are a chatter, how do you engage? What are some good things to do in a chatting stream versus a game stream? You know, they're totally different in some ways, but we can learn from each other as we get better at what we're doing and bringing the gospel to places that, well, it might be a place where people aren't used to hearing it, but it's certainly a place where people are open to hearing it.

Bearded Baywolf: No, absolutely. I mean, it's not a... know a race it's not a game it's not like who i've i've brought more people to christ than you did no it's it's about shared resources and and the the kingdom's for everybody and you know jesus tells us we got to go to everybody and and share the good news and so whether you're playing a video game or just chatting there are definitely going to be different approaches to it we i've seen that with so many different people that are game focused and connecting with people and to me it's more of a building relationships because if i get to know who you are because all i see is on the screen is as a name they see me i don't see them but if i can build a relationship with them and get to know them and and know their story i'm able to adapt kind of what i need to do to make sure that they know that god loves them even in the stuff that they're dealing with

Leighton Seys: Yeah, and I'm just looking at chat as we're getting started here, and a number of people, and this is like, here's just one of those examples of, you know, being in a space like this. Hey, I'm just going to be lurking, I'm working, I got the sound down, I'm with students in the room, and I just wanted to say hi, and that's your love brother. So heavyweight coming in and just dropping a lurk. Like, how many churches... Can you go drop a lurk? I mean, you can go watch content and consume content, but you're not present with them in the space when it's, you know, necessarily in the same way that Twitch, you are, you're a participant and you can come out of lurk mode at any moment and you can engage with what's going on. To me, it is just so fascinating to get people where they are and their comfort level and their ability to engage with us as we're here. The people that are watching you on your channel, the people that are watching me on my channel, where we're gathered together. Those people are going to get a different experience than anybody that's going to go watch this as a VOD later on. They're going to miss out on some of those things because we're not going to read all the chat. I don't have it on screen because I want our big, beautiful faces to cover up all the screen so that everybody coming in here knows that we're having a conversation and we're here chatting with each other.

Bearded Baywolf: Oh, absolutely, and it's one of those things that I think it's a very unique setting because you can sneak into the back pew of a church. You can try to go into lurk mode, so to speak, but if the church is doing what they need to be doing, they're still going to greet that person. They're still going to know who they are. know lurkers are the backbone of twitch and unfortunately the last couple months i think the lurking community has taken a hit especially with what happened with pastor dustin and they've had to incorporate new things where we have to you know make sure we have a channel point redemption or whatever i don't think that's necessary because you know it is what it is and and The lurkers create an opportunity where it becomes a numbers game, really. We start chasing after numbers. Well, I've had 25 people here or whatever. It's about the intentionality, and if you create those conversations and build those opportunities for questions, they might come out of the woodwork, so to speak, and start answering those questions. You don't know what that conversation is going to be that's going to get them to be interested in the conversation at hand, which is typically in my channel about love, encouragement, positivity, and God. um i don't know how many times you've had somebody that's you know i've been working for a long time and all of a sudden i said something like oh i really really like that idea you know i don't necessarily believe that way but i'm open to your idea we have countless people that come in that do live overseas on my channel that come from different faiths and they're willing to stay around because i give them a platform i give them an opportunity to share what they got to say and then we say hey here's how we feel you're more than welcome to stay and and it's actually created wonderful relationships and and i think that you kind of miss that in a normal church setting because there's a certain stigma you got to look a certain way you've got to do a certain thing With Twitch, it's 24-7. I could be live at 11 p.m., and you're going to get a group of people in that might be interested about God. I don't know how many churches that I know of that are going to be open at 11 p.m.

Leighton Seys: I don't know if you might be old enough to remember the show Night Court. And I always thought when I was in seminary, how cool would it be to have night church? Like that would be so much fun. I mean, I worked in restaurants for a long time and Sunday morning is not a good time for people working in restaurants because they're prepping, they're getting ready for everybody that comes to work or that comes to eat after going to the service. And Friday night and Saturday night, great busy nights to be working. You know, you want to be there. You want to get the best crowds and you want to be a part of it. So I always thought like night church would have been a really fun thing. You go live at midnight. When I get home from working all day, I could show up and go to church for an hour. It'd be really cool. I've not started that. Who knows? I hadn't thought about in a few years. Maybe that's something I'll have to pray about to start night church and have people showing up. But I love the whole aspect of... People in different countries at different stages of the day can show up in the same space. Some people who are getting ready for the morning can show up, people that are at the end of their day, people that are in the middle of their day, and we can gather together around, I'm gonna word it this way, a place to belong rather than a place where we believe. and i know that might be threatening to some people but sometimes the church feels like you have to believe before you can belong and we have to vet everybody that you believe the right things and you believe the same way that we do and you say everything with the right words and you're not going to say anything to embarrass us or have people attack us and the way we believe things so you have to have it all right then you can belong and i really think that's the wrong way because Peter belonged in the disciples before he believed and said things the way that Jesus was.

Bearded Baywolf: Oh, yes, absolutely. And I think, you know, Western cultures created church more of a show place as opposed to a hospital, that it really is. I mean, church is designed for a place where, yeah, you might come in on your Sunday best or your Wednesday best or whatever it is and say, oh, yeah, everything's fine. But in reality, you're really kind of dealing with some heavy stuff. And a lot of churches kind of shy that stuff. Well, we don't want to talk about that. We just want to talk about the love of God. We just know that, you know, God loves you and he's going to see you and go back and do your thing. And far too often, that's a one day a week. You're just a Sunday morning seat warmer, so to speak. Whereas Twitch, yeah, you get all aspects of all the day, 24 hours a day, whether you live here in the United States or on the other side of the world. We have the opportunity to connect God to them and sometimes in places where it's rather illegal. Where we could theoretically be put in prison. We could be even killed. And if they're willing enough to pull up a device or a computer and let us speak life into them. that's planting those seeds that God wants us to do. And we're able to grow that way. And so, yeah, I think unfortunately, I still want to go back to the Midnight Church. Our church has been growing exponentially. We went from two gatherings to three gatherings to now we're having a fourth gathering. We started one at 5 p.m. because we were having issues with... the parking lot, basically. People coming and going. It just was a big, big mess. And the initial thought was, you're not going to alleviate the parking at 9 o'clock because they're going to show up then. You're going to just open up an opportunity for other people to show up when they're getting off of work at 5 p.m., which is the case. So I guarantee it, if you wanted to start a church at midnight... You're not going to alleviate the – you're not going to lose numbers from your morning gatherings. You're going to be bringing in a whole new group of people that are probably more willing to show up at that time because it's under the cover of dark. It's nighttime. They might not be seen as much. And so, I mean, it's one of those things that – I think more churches should go to having an opportunity where it's open 24 hours. Of course, that comes into a logistical issue of keeping somebody on staff at all times and all that stuff.

Leighton Seys: Yeah, there's different ways you can do it. I had the good fortune to work in one church that had a prayer room. And the way they had it set up was there was a door to the outside of the church from the prayer room and then a door into the church from the prayer room. So you could lock the door to the church and have the prayer room open 24-7. And I was like, that was a really cool place. I tried to get some similar things in a few other churches. Like the setup didn't allow for it. This was a intentionally designed, and it wasn't necessarily built as a prayer room to start with, but it was intentionally designed to have a room that people could enter from the outside of the church to come in and be a space for them. Later, it got turned into a prayer room, which I really loved. But... If we don't intentionally go to the people we're not reaching, we won't reach them. But also, your church might not be called to midnight church or night church, but there might be a group of people that are absolute, like the other streamer friends we have on, that are on at 2 and 3 and 4 in the morning. I don't watch them. I love them, but I don't watch them because I'm not on at 2 and 3 in the morning. I mean, I've... I end up doing a 10 o'clock at night podcast after I'm usually in bed because that's what works for them and their community. That's when they start and they go till 3, 4 in the morning. I'm like, all right, I haven't done this, but I'm sure at some point somebody's going to ask me to do a 2 a.m. podcast and I'm going to say yes to it. But, you know, that won't be the normal for me because that's not my audience. That's not who I'm called to reach. but i love working in the space where there are people who god is calling and knowing those people so i can send people over there when i'm not on i mean that's that's a pretty cool thing that churches in the physical space just compete with each other we're not going to send you down to the road to another church no absolutely and and it's it's funny that

Bearded Baywolf: I mean, I go back to Pastor Susie who, you know, a couple years ago might have been one of the few initial Christians on this platform that was doing it, and he didn't know where to go, so he just started doing it. And over the course of the last, what, four or five years, we're no longer, I mean, we're still a very, very small minority compared to the normal streamer community, but we are growing exponentially, and we have the opportunities to send people. if they're alive at 2 a.m you know for the australia people you know i've got a couple friends you know i'm seeing in chat where a couple people we know that are streaming in australia which is the time that i'm always in bed because i'm an old man i got to go to bed at nine o'clock because i've got to get the beauty rest it seems to not work at all but i still attempt to get the beauty rest and but we were able to send them to those locations to still get loved and get encouraged and get fed and build those relationships it's it's a beautiful thing when we have a specific stream time because we know that people are going to show up at those times but when we are able to branch out and go into other stream times or get to connected with these other streamers it builds those relationships and like i said it's not a it's not a contest it's not a matter of how many people have you brought to christ it's about hey collectively what have we done to love the community what we've done to encourage people Because there's so much negativity on this platform. There's so much hate. And we have the opportunity to flip the script, so to speak, and speak life into people and tell them that they actually have so much value and so much worth, probably more than they even realize when they initially walk in, because they're made in the image of God. And I mean, it's such an amazing thing to just get to tell people that.

Leighton Seys: Yeah. And there's so many facets around being in this space that I don't think people fully grasp or understand or those things. But you were talking about Pastor Susie, which he's been on for longer than XP Church. I believe XP Church is celebrating 10 years this year. VRMMO Church. is also celebrating 10 years this year. I don't believe they necessarily started on Twitch 10 years ago, but the church itself is celebrating 10 years. And Lux Digital Church is also celebrating this year, five years. And there's probably more out there. I don't know all of their, I just happen to know those three have celebrations this year. And to think about, wow. two digital churches celebrating 10 years, another one celebrating five years. That's not a lot of churches for the millions of streamers who are online at any given time. Like we could not all show up. Well, I guess we could because we're digital, but we couldn't all necessarily show up at those three churches only. But space isn't limited in digital. We could have 10,000 viewers at one stream at a time. Oh, absolutely.

Bearded Baywolf: That would be the dream.

Leighton Seys: Well, I don't know because I really think on some, like, I pose this question to people often, just thinking of physical churches, and I think it's true of digital. Would it be better for the kingdom impact to have one church of 10,000 people or 1,000 churches of 10 people?

Bearded Baywolf: i really kind of agree with that the this you know the smaller the better i think anytime you you visit any big time streamer that's got thousands of viewers in their their channel and chat is just flying around right the one thing that they always say that they miss is that small streamer feel where they're able to connect with every single person and so yeah 10 000 people it just becomes a numbers game at that point you're not able to connect with all 10 000 people But still, even if you're not a traditional church or something like Deluxe Digital or whatever, you still have the opportunity to share the gospel in your own unique way, which is why you can play video games, you can chat, you can cook. This platform was just specifically created for gaming. And over the last five or six years, it has exploded into a multifaceted platform that you can connect to people with the things that you like to do, all of your hobbies. and there's always going to be somebody out there that's going to like it, whether you have two people in your chat or 2,000 people in your chat.

Leighton Seys: Yeah, there's a level of this. I've been thinking about this over the last month that reminds me of public access TV, if you remember that, where you'd have a local station and you could go down to the local station and go live because they needed somebody to go live because they didn't have programming and they weren't paying staff. So you could just schedule, go down there for two hours and do whatever program that you wanted. Now, they had to be FCC approved and all of that stuff, but it's like... you get some really odd things that people were passionate about and cared about, but there would be an audience that also would care and be passionate about those things. And that's really fun to see the evolving of it just being gaming to it being a live experience. And what is the live experience I want to participate in?

Bearded Baywolf: No, it's sometimes just viewed as a party, right? People want to be a part of that. But other times it's, and I always say it's the escape from reality, that twitches the opportunities for you to escape the mundane days of work and bills and family, if necessary, or the depressions that you're dealing with and give you an opportunity to say, hey. I'm stepping aside from that. We're going to just relax and enjoy the antics of whatever we find ourselves into and give them a chance to kind of decompress with what's going on. And you can't necessarily do that a lot of times in other settings outside of Twitch because Twitch gives you that unique opportunity to just really connect with people and know what they're going through and say, hey, I've kind of been through that, which kind of leads me to think that our testimonies have so much more power because every single person person testimony whether you think it's boring or not somebody else is going through that same situation And it goes back to the whole idea of the public broadcasting network, that somebody is going to like what you're presenting, whether you realize it or not, because they're like, man, I see myself in that, or I was right there, and we have the opportunity to share our testimony, and that's why I say share those. I'm a life leader for the sophomore guys at my church for the high school youth group, and some of them are getting really, really good at sharing their testimony. Some of them are like, I don't know if it's good. I say, well, just go stand in front of a mirror and share it. Say it to yourself. The more you say it, the more that God's going to help you find the right words to say. And I promise you, it's still going to have so much power. That's something we've been really, really talking about is knowing that your story has so much more power because that's what defeats Satan, you know. we have the opportunities to speak life into somebody and somebody else is going through that same thing, which is why Twitch is so unique because somebody else is going to like the same things you like, whether you realize it or not. Somebody's going to have the same eclectic tastes as you and it's going to be far more people than you probably realize.

Leighton Seys: Yeah, it is interesting how you can have that, but also Twitch allows you to engage the direction of what is happening. Like Sunshine has been adding comments to the chat, and we can engage those comments and move the direction of where things are going. You know, as we were talking about what's happening, she's talking about crochet, music, gaming, pets, painting. There's card games. There's so many different things. that can go on and i love those fringe areas myself honestly i love the what are people exploring what are people doing what can we have fun but yeah what's what was so this this happened last week and this is really funny how this happened so i went to a networking event at the conference that i was at which is exponential church planning conference so i'm at a networking thing i was really excited about going to the place jason who i picked up not so excited about the location where it was all of that but he was going to come along because i was there so we're we're networking we're talking with different people one guy makes a comment about he liked my flat cap that i was wearing he asked me a certain brand was it that brand and i'm like yes it is And then I thought he said, I have a few of those. And then he said, no, no, no. I have four of those. And I'm like, oh, okay. So I give him a little tiny fist bump. Oh, nice, nice. You got four. You're in the game. And his buddy says, no, you didn't hear him right. He said 40. I'm like, oh, now we're fist bumping, baby. Now we're like, it was so funny. He had to point that out to me too. He goes, I saw what you did there. oh it's four yay you're you're at least on the team and then when it was 40 he's like oh my goodness we're buds but he wasn't wearing one at the time so i had to give him you know garbage for not having being prepared to you know show up properly attired for uh the event but it's it's it's that kind of level of oh you have one too that's awesome i love that fantastic uh you have several of them okay we're good and then all of a sudden wait a minute you have 40 you're you're just as obsessed about them as i am we're we're we're co we're you know brothers from another mother that love the same thing and i appreciate you putting the hat i have so many people i have so you're like let me put my hat on for you friend

Bearded Baywolf: don't have 40 i've got three um it's a start i'm in the game so it's just a little little it's a little game but i tell you it's it's it's yeah i mean the things that you like are going to have a lasting impact on somebody else's life and whether you realize it or not and i think when we realize that on this platform that we are connecting with people as opposed to and and it's connecting to people and connecting to ideas and then those opportunities then turn into you know this is where i come from from a standpoint of love and god and this is why i believe in that it just gets that ball rolling i think far too often people kind of go in with just the conversation initially of you know god loves you and i view that more like the cornerstone preacher who's just yelling on the yeah did the corner you're going to connect people to god of course but i think people are going to be kind of turned off by it but it's the three c's i've said it before compassion care and conversation if you have the compassion for people and truly care for them without any regard to them doing anything for you it's naturally going to lend itself to those conversations of why are you treating me like this well it's because jesus loves me so much that i want to love you And when you do it in that manner, it creates an opportunity to build relationships, whether it's around hats or it's around video games or around just simple conversation.

Leighton Seys: Yeah, absolutely. I love those three, care, compassion, and conversation. That's really cool. So to kind of along those lines, I had someone who showed up in my stream, or I should say two people who've showed up on my stream. So I have a person who shows up regularly, will occasionally show up to the podcast, and she's been in and out of the hospital. So when she's in and out of the hospital, a friend of hers used hers to show up and explore, give us updates, but also go around to me and several others in the community and say, okay, what is it about you that this person likes so they started showing up to explore and find out and that was actually the question that came up today when she showed up her sister now was using hers showed up in my stream and said well i passed along the information but i wanted to see for myself why does my sister come and hang out here I don't understand why she comes and hangs out here. What is about you? What is about other people in this space that she is seeing? And so it is that. It's that thing that we give to people, the care, the compassion for them that changes people's lives.

Bearded Baywolf: No, absolutely. This platform gives them an opportunity to be heard. It gives them an opportunity to say, and I'm very intentional about that. I'm very, very adamant about banning anybody because sometimes people come into a conversation expecting to get banned because that's what's been happened to them in the past. But when they realize that we respond... way that christ responds with love they're instantly like okay this guy's a little different than somebody else and so maybe i'll hang around and so giving them an opportunity to to say what they're saying loving them and encouraging them because like i said this this platform is i think a lot of times built upon the fact that they want to degrade you and make you feel bad i mean you've got streamers that you know make people feel bad to just get subs and all that stuff you know i've said it before i could care less about the money if god were to take away if twitch were to take away the monetization from my channel would i stop doing it absolutely not because connecting and building relationships and getting them to go to heaven with me is far more valuable than a 4.99 or 5.99 subscription in my mind i can't take that with me oh yeah but i can take the relationship and help them find a personal relationship with christ get to go with them and be with them for all of eternity and so having that intentionality of okay hey you're a new person in the community tell me a little bit about yourself who would love to get to know who you are you're more than just a name you're valued you're loved and you're going to be encouraged and whether you believe in god or not know that you're going to have that value you're going to be loved and encouraged and far more often people are like oh my i don't believe in god necessarily i did it at some point well let's see what happened and let's kind of get you back to there and if you don't That's okay. You're going to hear about God on my channel, whether you want to or not. But I promise you it's not because I want you to feel bad. It gives them an opportunity to know that they're going to be loved. And, you know, I have a blast of encouragement, Channel Point Redemption, where I'm able to just speak life into people. I do postcards where I write them a little note. I don't know how many times I've received notifications back that they got those postcards and said that came at the right time and those are the right words. And I had no idea what I said.

Leighton Seys: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

Bearded Baywolf: that that god just kind of writes through me to saying hey you need to say this and um you know a lot of my community knows captain america um he called me and said dude i'm going through a very difficult time his wife had just passed away and the things that i said helped him kind of come back and know that god is still looking out for him even though he's going through some difficult times and i'm like i don't even know what i wrote after my wife said i have no idea what i said but apparently it was the right thing and it was able to build a relationship that that far exceeds just twitch we're able to connect outside of of twitch and that's what this platform does is allows us to build relationships and connect with people that far exceed just twitch it's discord it's irl it's conferences it's an opportunity to meet these amazing people

Leighton Seys: Yeah, just kind of to step back from that as I'm thinking about that, the platform didn't intentionally create it to be used this way. They created it for us to stay on the platform so that they'd have more viewers. However, Christians have decided and have figured out that this is a place where we can be in people's lives and investing in people's lives because we have access to them. They have access to us. We build relationships and you're right. Sometimes it has to go off platform so that it becomes asynchronous because we need deeper levels of conversation. I can't hold a conversation with everybody in chat right now. If they all started trying to ask me questions, I'm going to miss them all. It's one of those things that chat at sometimes gets a little bit out of hand. And I'm like, I'm a half an hour behind. It's going to be a half an hour before I can read through all these comments. It's not going to happen. but in in an asynchronous way i take the time i i go in into there when it happens so this is a place that we're using for good just the same way that not like everything that's created isn't created for good it can be it can be created neutral it can be for evil or and we can still redeem it so even if something is created with you know bad purposes bad intent we can still redeem it for the kingdom and and that's what we've been doing in the twitch space and it's it's so much fun

Bearded Baywolf: Yeah, I mean, I just saw Warrior of Light say the harvest is plentiful, and the workers are few. I mean, if we were to sit here, we could probably spend the entire podcast just connecting with what Chad's saying. And I always go into my streams with the intentionality of connecting with people first. We might play a game at the end, but usually it's once the conversation starts to wind down because people typically have to bounce out. And then I use the game just to... kind of break the ice so to speak but if the conversation picks back up you better believe that that game gets paused it goes back to the conversation because you can go watch anybody play a game oh yeah but we're all about building relationships and and maintaining those opportunities to connect others to christ and get to know who they are because like i said they have so much value so much worth They might be dealing with some really, really heavy stuff or they might have some amazing thing that they need to tell us. And if I'm playing a video game and I skirt over that, then I feel like I've done them a disservice. And really, I mean, I make sure that the people are heard. And I think that's why we've had such an opportunity to connect so many people to the gospel. And I think a lot of the Christian streamers are having an opportunity, unlike any other, where we're able to really build the relationships and kind of change the culture of Twitch. to allow us to really make this more user-friendly to us than what it initially was designed for.

Leighton Seys: Well, and along those lines of... the relationship aspect of these things. I'm one of those weird guys that, you know, as soon as YouTube allowed for live streaming, I was live streaming my church service. So like 10 years before COVID, I was on board with doing that. I was an early adopter of those kinds of things. And when everybody suddenly... Thank you for the follow, friend. When everybody just suddenly went online during COVID, all of a sudden now, even though I've been doing this for 10 years, I'm going, why is anyone going to show up and watch me? Why aren't they just going to go, if everybody's at home, and watch Andy Stanley? Why aren't they just going to go watch NT Wright? Why aren't they going to go watch Alistair Begg? I mean, much more beautiful voice than mine. I mean, he is amazing to listen to his voice. I don't care what he's talking about. I love his voice. I mean, I do care about what he's saying. But anyway, it's like all of a sudden I had this, what am I offering people? And it went back to why did I start streaming in the first place our services live? Because it was about the relationship with people. That's why I started 10 years before COVID is because I had people in relationship that couldn't be present. And so I wanted to keep the relationship going so that they could feel present. When we when they couldn't physically be if they were shut ins, if they were snowbirds, if they were homesick, if they were homesick with their kids who were sick, like all of those things were relationship barriers to being present. And it was just like when I realized it was the same reason I started to begin with. It made it so much more of, okay, how do I now make them feel welcome in relationship from just peeking in the room, which is what I had done for a while. You're just peeking in the room. You're already part of us because now there's a whole bunch more eyeballs on it. How do I make sure you know I know you're there and I care about you and not just as eyeballs. I care about you as a person.

Bearded Baywolf: I mean, I think we look at COVID as such a horrible, horrible thing, but in reality, it changed the landscape of how we interact with people. You know, spending more time at home with family, that's always a good thing, and I think a lot of times we didn't really have that. And the online aspect, and so many more people went to the platforms, YouTube, Twitch, Kik, whatever it might be, in search of finding something to get them away from the boringness of being stuck at home. And so... It allowed this platform and all those other platforms to really thrive and to actually get to the heart of it, which is the people. It's not necessarily a product. It's not necessarily a game, but it's the people. It's getting to love them and getting to know who they are and getting to know the amazing stories that they've got and allows us to know that and allows them to know that they're not alone in this big, huge world. Twitch is a way of bringing everybody together. I mean, I've got this map behind me where all my new followers, I try to put a pin on there just to show them how closely connected we truly are. Even though the world is big, we're able to be all across the globe and still connect. And that's because this platform is live 24 hours a day and we have the opportunities to love them. And I think a lot of that had to do with COVID happening. I mean, you can say that it's a bad thing because of all the deaths and stuff, but there was more, there was a lot of good that came out of that too.

Leighton Seys: Yeah, there absolutely is. Now you're talking about everybody has a story. Normally we've already been diving into this. I've just been enjoying where this conversation is going. So I just like, I have questions to ask. And of those who are normally here know my first question is, how did you get started on Twitch? We haven't even got to that one. We're well over a half an hour into this conversation. because it's just been rich and good and i didn't feel this over sensing urge we have to bring it back and it has to be my agenda it's wherever the spirit is is leading us where we're engaging but i but that's just a connection point there if everyone has a story and i love to know how you first found out about twitch and then what did you do when you first decided you were going to be a twitch streamer was it intentionally as a christian in the space was it just as i'm going to be a gamer and what is that piece of your story your testimony of how god has brought you to what you're doing now in stream

Bearded Baywolf: Well, funny enough, you know, I've been a Christian my entire life. Grandparents on both sides were ministers. My father, you know, preaches every once in a while. I've done a handful of preaching at places. And so, you know, just like most guys, or at least that I know of, I did step away from God saying I could do things better in my 20s. Explore things outside of the Christian side of things because I lived a very sheltered life and I'm not saying that's a bad thing. And in fact, it actually served me very, very well. But there's things I wanted to experience, things that I should not have experienced that I did. And when I initially started streaming. It was gaming. It was just strictly gaming, but I was visiting with people and hanging out with people and saying things I really shouldn't have been saying. And I was not bearded Beowulf at the time. I've been Beowulf on platforms for well over 20 years, whether it's Xbox, PlayStation, PC. And so I've had that name. And so when I initially first started streaming, it was just an escape. I was working nights at the time, gave me something to do while the rest of the family was sleeping. And that kind of took a dark turn because it put me into places that I shouldn't have been and see things I shouldn't see and do things I shouldn't be doing. When I was able to finally go to days, I was driving to work one morning. And I remember this. It's about a 20-minute drive for me. It's a perfect opportunity. I was sitting there praying and listening to my praise music, and I heard an audible voice say, you're going to stream for me. And I wrestled with that because I knew instantly it was God telling me to do this, that he wanted me to change who I was. I can tell you a chat, if you wrestle with God, you'll never win. You can try to wrestle all you want, and eventually God is going to, if you decide that you're not going to do it, he's going to find somebody else to take your place. That's the truth. God is going to equip everybody. He's going to equip the call, and he's not going to necessarily call the equipped. but he's going to help you in so many different ways. And so when I finally decided to do that, that meant I had to cut ties with people. And, you know, the little bit of fame that I had, the five to seven viewers that I was averaging, which I thought was big at the time, cut bait with those people. And I rechanged, I changed my name from weird allogamation of bearded underscore Beowulf. And for three months, I literally streamed to one person. I started reading the Bible on stream. I started loving whoever would pop in. And it was one of those things that was like, I'd see it tick up. And so I'd talk to them. And I was still learning the processes of streaming of a lot of dead air, trying to fill the space with talking and creating those things. And so it wasn't until Lucis and Donna Elise, Kishu Kairalia and Legend of Zyrus popped in my stream and they saw something. realized hey this guy's got something to say and it just kind of took off from there it was initially viewed as streaming as hey it's an escape from reality i'm going to play games that then turned into god turning into something that he saw that i had skills for that this is the gift that i have digital mission work i feel is like the thing that is for me because i'm able to connect with people and love them and encourage them and even though i don't see who they are god still knows what i need to tell them and it seems to be the things that they need to hear at the time i don't know how that is it's the holy spirit it's it's boggles my mind it it's just it this is what this is what you know fills me up loving people encouraging people i can come on here and have a bad day and after the after chatting with stream i'll be a different person and so God worked through what was initially a bad thing, shined his light into it and said, you know, you're going to do this for me. And whether you ever get a checkmark by your name or you ever do anything, you're going to continue to love people. It's been one of those things that getting to connect people to God and know that he's changed my life and changed my wife and my kids' life. My boys went to church camp. And when they came back from church camp, they were baptized. Church camp is something I'm very, very passionate about. My community knows we raise money for church camp, specifically for my church. And there's a new big announcement I'm going to be sharing Friday in regards to that. Because I know how valuable it is to have that personal relationship with God. It's not my religion based on what I shared off onto you guys, but it's an opportunity to say, hey, here's where God met me. This is where God changed me and fixed me. I'm still a work in progress. I don't have it all put together. God doesn't meet us when we are perfect. He meets us where we're at. And I think far too many times people think I need to fix this. I need to fix that. I need to take that thing out of my life. No, no. God meets you right where you're at and helps you grow out of those moments. He's going to shut doors that are going to be shut that can never be opened again. He's going to open doors that can't be shut. And it's an opportunity for us to love people. And that's why my channel is so intentional about that.

Leighton Seys: Oh, that's just such good stuff. But I want to back up because I love the little pieces that happen and then you're moving the story forward and we didn't get to talk about. So you hear the audible voice that says, you're going to stream for me. What did your gut feel when that like, oh no, or I can't, or what was your gut visceral response to the spirit telling you, you're going to go do something?

Bearded Baywolf: I mean, I think initially I was relieved, I guess you could say. I mean, it was crazy. It wasn't like a Saul to Paul situation where I'm blinded and I'm scared and all that stuff. I felt like it was, you know what, I do see what God's saying. But I still have to work through some things here to get me there. And it was still a couple months from that initial conversation. to me even finally getting changed over from you know i was a beowulf with numbers and all sorts of stuff and it wasn't going to be brandable at all it just didn't look because people said let's be 30 wolf and it's like no it's it's the three supposed to be an e it was just the big best so When I initially changed it, I changed all of my platforms over to bearded underscore Beowulf with, and at the time I was on PlayStation, PlayStation being the last thing that I changed. I should have done that first because if somebody had taken that, then I would have had to go back and rebrand everything once again. And it was actually my wife's idea to go bearded Beowulf because I've always had the beard. And I was like, I love that. And so I was initially, you know, I was relieved. I felt this peace about it, but I knew that I still had stuff that I had to work through. I wasn't scared because I knew that, you know, through my entire life, God has helped me through some amazing things. We were in a tornado in Joplin in 2011. Our house was picked up with us in it. You know, we've, you know. Boys were born in the NICU. Well, they weren't born in the NICU, but they were in the NICU for six weeks after they were born. We've had so many things happen that, you know, from a worldly perspective should technically break me. But God has shown up time and time again, and I promise you, each and every one of you guys in chat, I guarantee you whether you're chasing after God or not, he's chasing after you. In every single situation of your life, there's one constant, and it's always God.

Leighton Seys: Yeah, absolutely. And like I said, I didn't know what it would be because for some people it's the argue with God. No, I can't. It's doubt. You mentioned it wasn't fear. I love how you mentioned it was peace. And that is when it says the peace that surpasses understanding will guard your hearts and minds. I love when there is a clear thing that you're supposed to do from God. Sometimes it comes from you. Sometimes it comes from wrestling with a decision and discernment, yes or no. And sometimes it's God giving you the thing. But when you know that God is in it and God has called you and God is approving, there is that level of peace, which is like I. I don't say I've had that every time that I've made a decision of should I go to this church or not go to this church. It's not always there. But there are times when this is a really, really big decision. I have really been struggling with this. I've been wrestling with this for six months. And then when the decision is made and the peace happens, it's like... i don't have any more doubts i just know no matter what happens i'm in the i'm going the right direction i'm supposed to be so i love that that's what happened like okay you're going to stream for me and then you had peace about it you did a whole rebranding which yeah is in some ways going to have people leave from the space that you're in

Bearded Baywolf: Yeah, it was definitely, it was more of me cutting those ties as well, which was very difficult because they were instrumental in me getting from just a small time streamer to that affiliate status. I mean, they were instrumental in helping me get to that next stage in the streaming career, which I think anybody that goes live on this platform always has a dream to be able to get to that next point and to the next thing. And you always are so grateful for that group of people that you don't want to turn your back to them. But I knew that... the piece that I had allowed me to know that God was going to help me through that situation. And I didn't see the harvest from that until, and I'm still seeing it. I'm still seeing it. And sometimes I think a lot of times, and it's something that I've done is I never went into my prayers after that saying, okay, God, you're going to make me a successful streamer. You're going to do this. Because I think a lot of times we go into our prayer life with this mentality of, okay, God, you've done this for me. So I expect you to do this for me. And when that doesn't happen, we are disappointed and we're sad because God works outside of our purview of time and space. And his timing is absolutely perfect. And the Holy Spirit guides us. And it's been something that I've done is I've changed the trajectory of my prayer life as to. not something that i could do and if your prayers don't scare you sometimes you're probably not praying the right things prayers should in some way scare you because you're praying for things that god needs to fix in your life and we get so comfortable living in our own perfect little square in our little boxes that we don't want to step out because it's comfortable but god wants us to step out of that comfort zone with blind faith the faith that moves mustard seeds and allows him to grow and allows him to to work through us you know god's going to do a work in you before he's going to do work through you And I think a lot of times people think it's the other way around. God's going to work through me. No, he's going to change who you are. Look at all the people in the Bible. He takes the smallest people. He takes the people with the speech impediments. He takes the people that nobody wants to be around, and God does miraculous and amazing things with those people.

Leighton Seys: Yeah, there's definitely a level of God working in you before he works through you. But that's because he has to work in you to fill you so that he can go through you. And it's amazing how often in digital space, I feel a whole lot more inadequate. than than i i ever have been and then i get to see god do much more out of my inadequacy than i i was watching god do out of places where i felt i was you know completely qualified to do the things that i was doing so yeah if your prayer life isn't scaring you or you know it's not urgent it might be another way to to to put a a handle on that what are you actually asking god for how are you going to god To flip that the other side, I just want to ask you this because I do have a couple that I can share. Have you had something just amazing or miraculous happen from your community in prayer?

Bearded Baywolf: You know, we've actually, it's funny enough, Faithful Wanderer and Soldier of God, a couple months back, were in the processes of needing to move. And they found a different property. They were paying two mortgages. And it became a really big nightmare for them. And then they came into Stream saying, hey, we have an opportunity for the house to close on this date. They keep moving it. We stopped everything. We prayed for it. And they came in the next day and said, hey, the house is closed. You're no longer paying two mortgages. It was a literal answer from prayers. God, we've had some amazing, amazing answers to prayer. Like I said, the postcards, I think, have been the biggest thing for me is I will write something to somebody, and next thing I know, they're calling me, they're texting me, they're whatever, saying, hey, dude, I don't know why you wrote this, but it's exactly what I needed in those moments. And that's a prayer answered as well. Outside of that, I mean... There's so many. There's so many. This platform gives us an opportunity to connect with so many different people and give them an opportunity to say, hey, I'm dealing with prayer or dealing with this situation. And that's why I make a specific channel for redemption for them to redeem prayer. And there's actually a brand new Bible bot that I just started using, Forged Bible Bot. I'm sure you know about that. Forged by Grace actually created this. And there's an exclamation point prayer where you can type it in. It showcases it. It puts it to a dashboard so you continually remember to pray for it. Because, you know, my morning drives to work. When I'm saying my prayers, it's trying to remember all of those prayer requests that we've had over the last stream or the last two streams or whatever. And I always end up forgetting something. Always end up forgetting something. But I think my community knows that if they bring a prayer request to me, They know it's going to be prayed about. Something that we've instilled in my boys and something that we've instilled as a family. You know, wife prays for things. I pray for things. The boys pray for stuff. And they are, you know, becoming very instrumental in their own group at high school of praying for others. They've started, you know, the FCA program just came back. They're doing Bible studies with offense and defensive linemen that might not have ever stepped in. in church at all but it's because of the intentionality that we've created here and what our church is doing has allowed them to to have that boldness to to be able to to step out and pray for these guys and and it's something that's My men's Bible group, this is the announcement I was going to share on Friday, but we're now trying to sponsor all 20 of those guys to go to church camp, and that's like $10,000 we're trying to raise. The church gives us $250 for the life groups to go out into our community and make a difference. And one of the guys in our life group is the offensive line coach. My boys are very, very closely connected with him. I have twin boys. I don't know if you knew that. 16-year-old hulking mountain of boys are offensive linemen. And there's three guys. There's my two boys and a third one that are very, very vocal with their faith. that have now reached into the football team and brought guys that never been to church before. And so our men's group decided, Hey, we're going to have a barbecue. and church gives us $250, we're going to turn that into $10,000, similar to the five loaves of bread and fish. We're going to make it grow. And it's not a matter of are we going to do this? It's a matter of we're putting our best foot forward, and God's going to meet us where we're at, and he's going to provide in ways that are so amazing. And so it's one of those things that we're doing this and connecting kids. And whether they go to Bible camp or not, to church camp, that money is still going to go towards the youth group to fund for other kids scholarships opportunities that we're able to to reach out into the community and help out and prairie is is so magical it's so powerful and it's so important because it's our personal line of communication to God. I mean, everything that Paul says, we pray without ceasing and all things pray. I mean, even in the armor of God, it's finally prayer is our tool that allows us to communicate with God. And so whether you believe it or not, God wants that personal relationship with you. And that's what my channel, that's what we try to do is build that personal relationship with Christ. And know that you're not going through it alone. God's right there with you. And even though Satan might be trying to thwart you, God has overcome him. We're in the final days, guys. I mean, Satan's already been defeated, and Satan can only do so much. God has taken care of that, and Jesus Christ has already overcame. And so now is our opportunity to share the gospel and love people.

Leighton Seys: Yeah, it's... It's definitely really one of the most amazing things that I see and I love to talk about is prayer in the space. Not that I didn't see it in a physical church. We certainly have prayer groups. My church, way back in the day before I went to seminary, we had prayer pagers. I don't know if you ever heard a church that had that. When someone was ill, we'd give them a pager. And then we gave the phone number out to the church. So you would just send a message. It'd vibrate. You know, someone was praying for you when you're in the hospital, your family's in ICU, those kinds of things. So we did some of those early adopting kind of things. But there seems to be more of an immediacy of the need and a willingness to share it in digital space that I didn't always see in my congregations where there's certain people that would never tell you anything going on in their life. And if they did, it was superficial. And so you didn't get to the depth of your, this is despair and we need to be earnestly in prayer. So it'd be casual prayer. God help them because I know they need something. you know it's it's like it's not really in depth on any level to to having that shift and change to even when we don't fully know and understand like i had about a year and a half ago a fall i was at my mom's house i was working on my la on on her roof i fell off the ladder i landed on a tree stump when i fell i'm having to go to the emergency room and I just quickly put a message in Discord, said, hey, I fell, go into the ER, I'll update later. And like the instantaneous prayers just started rolling in. And the overwhelming one that just was like everybody piling on was praying for no pain, praying for no pain, praying for nothing broken. And as I was reading those, waiting for the doctors, when I got to the ER, I'm looking at them going, I don't have any pain. Why is everybody praying for no pain? I didn't say, hey, pray for no pain. Everybody was. And then all of a sudden, it was like the Holy Spirit whispered to me, I already answered that. So it was, you didn't have any pain because I heard those prayers prior to them saying those prayers prior to pain arriving. So the answer preceded the prayer, but the prayer still took place so that it could be answered. And that was just kind of like one of those mind opening things of like, we think linear, God isn't bound by linear. He can answer a prayer. prior to it ever being spoken. And yet our hearts are going to be moved to the prayer that he's already answering. And we move with the spirit and the spirit intercedes on our behalf to guide us to those prayers so that they can be answered because he's already at work answering them. And it's just like, oh my goodness, that was so, so... Like, an experience is like, wow, why did you let me be the one to experience that? Like, it was like, I didn't deserve to have that kind of revelation, but it really wasn't me. It was my stream that was the one that got the benefit of that.

Bearded Baywolf: I think, yeah, I think if you go to church and you say, hey, can I pray for you? I think you're going to get the, things are going good. We're doing good. Oh, pray for this, whatever. There's some, there's a sort of anonymity here on this platform that they see us. We see the name. They are kind of, I wouldn't say, and then it's not a bad thing. They're protected behind the name. They're able to kind of express what they're dealing with because. They're not having to look us in the eye. And I love that we're able to still build a relationship and connect with people. And I think that that gives us the opportunities better to pray for people because they're more willing to open up. And I always say, you know, that takes a lot of guts for you even to say, hey, I'm struggling with this. I'm dealing with that. I made a bad decision here because I struggle with that. If somebody at my church says, hey, how can I pray for you? I'm like, oh, I'm good. I'm good. But in reality, I'm like, oh, I'm struggling with depression or thoughts or whatever. But it makes me feel like I'm, and not worthy enough to even ask for those prayers. And so that's something that I struggle with, and that's something that I'm working with is... okay, hey, on this platform I can open up and be 100% honest with people. I can't do that. We put those walls up, and it's being earnest and being open with everybody. And that's why I love this platform is it allows us to connect in a very unique, different way than a traditional church or even out at the grocery store or at school or wherever it might be. It gives us an opportunity to be the light to them and give them their voice to actually be heard.

Leighton Seys: And I think it goes back to what we were talking a little bit about earlier as well. There's a sense of belonging before they believe. So they don't even have to believe in prayer, but they belong to the community. So they share what's going on in their life. Like here's the struggle. Even to the point of brand new people begin to witness it and they don't know prayer. They're not sure about it, but they're like, well, it's not gonna hurt. You know, which is amazing how you can ask people if they need prayer in public, and a lot of people are open to it, even if they don't believe in it. Yeah, yeah, what could it hurt to pray? I don't believe in God, but, you know, you can go ahead and pray if you want. We need to maybe in some ways, and I like... I have minus seven points for channel redeem of pray just because seven is the number of totality and completeness. And so I use that number. I could have put it at one. I put it at that. Not because you need to have points. Like anybody that shows up already has enough points to ask for prayer. It's just that you go and look at what they can do. And it's like, oh, prayer. Maybe I could do that. Maybe that's an important thing that I can try and see if God will do it. Outside of here. One of the most amazing, weird, weird prayers I ever got to be a part of. So it was a retreat, and we had Teen Challenge individuals there. And one of them wrote on a prayer list, and I'm working in the prayer room, and we're just praying over every prayer that comes in. I'm just in there 24-7 in the team. We're praying. We're not doing the retreat. We're just prayer team only. And one of these prayers came in and it said, I'll believe God exists when I see Christians acting like chickens. And like, that's a pretty very specific prayer request there. I can't wait to see how God answers this. And they did a skit that they switched what skit they were going to do. And they actually did a skit. where Christians were acting like chickens in the skit while a pastor went around doing some stuff, trying to get people and there was farm animals or whatever. But there's a bunch of Christians acting like chickens. And this person was like, I didn't believe in prayer. I didn't believe in God. And I asked God for something ridiculous and stupid. And he showed me that he must be real because there's no way that happened otherwise.

Bearded Baywolf: That is, that's amazing.

Leighton Seys: So, I mean, so I've seen those things like on stream, but not as ridiculous as that one, but just the answers to prayer, people believing that I don't deserve God's love. Why would God love me? And answers to prayer, listening to other people's answers to prayer, begin to soften their hearts to, even if they can't believe they deserve God, they're at least open to, I hope that God would love me. I want to... work towards a relationship there and i think prayer is one of those keys that we can't overlook is a valuable tool for being a streamer and and trying to bring salt and light into the digital space

Bearded Baywolf: Yeah, I agree. I think a lot of times people view prayer as a final resort. Let me take care of this stuff on my own first, and then I'll give it to God. My prayer redemption, I don't even remember how much it is, maybe $20. It's cheap, so anybody that comes in is going to be able to redeem it. We stop everything. I don't care if we're in the middle of a game. I don't care if I'm at a boss fight. I don't care if we're in the middle of a battle royale game. I'll go hide in a bush or something. We're going to stop and pray for you because that is far more important than anything that's happening else. You have an intentional need. You have something that you need to share, whether it's a good thing, whether it's a bad thing. And yeah, I agree. I think people that might pop in initially that are kind of on the fence about who God is, they see the intentionality of who we are and the love and the level of attention that we have to the people that are in the community at the time. that they're more willing to open up. And I think, you know, I think churches could definitely benefit and learn from that as, you know, the bigger the church gets, the harder it is to find some of that stuff. And there's something to be said about, you know, a church of, you know, 10,000 churches of, you know, a thousand churches of 10 people is you're able to be more intentional with those people. There's nothing wrong with a church of 10,000 people, but still, I mean, but you're able to connect with those people and be able to love them and, uh, those that are kind of on the fence and like, I don't know what this God thing is all about. It doesn't hurt. I mean, it's such an amazing opportunity to see those relationships change from I don't know who God is to I can't believe what God just did in my life.

Leighton Seys: Oh, yeah. And when I mention that, I'm not picking on churches of 10,000 people. They do function within the kingdom. They are a part of the kingdom, so I have no issue there. But it's in a church of 10 people, I'm known by everyone. In a church of 10,000 people, who knows me? And how many people can I have a relationship in? And those who want a relationship and want to be known, they will be. But there's those people who could just be totally lost at times because of their personality, because of, you know, something about them, some social, you know, anxiety or some, you know, they don't, like my son is not really good with social cues and awkward. So maybe there's some of those things. And it's just like, they're not good at making friends. A church that's that large, they just disappear. And I hate the idea of anybody disappearing. I want everybody to be known. I want everybody to feel they belong. And for me, the smaller community, I feel like I belong more than the larger community. Although I love to belong in multiple communities at the same time. That's also part of who I am.

Bearded Baywolf: I think it's the constant battle for a streamer to be big and have those opportunities. I think there's a lot of things that do come with a checkmark by your name, but in some regards, it's not necessarily really worth it because you lose that small feel. You lose that ability to connect with every single person. But at the same time, it's fun to be a part of an event where you're a part of one of a thousand people cheering this person on or whatever. And it's one of those things that I see it all the time. You know, these big streamers that I said it before and said it earlier, they miss that connections that they had to those people. And they try. And then I see some of the bigger streamers that are partnered that are trying to grasp that to a degree. I think there's a couple of amazing ones that do a really good. Jimma Fox song does a really good job of. still connecting to people even though she's kind of a bigger community. She's just recently partnered, but she's still able to connect with those people. And sometimes it takes her 30, 45 minutes before she even gets to a game because she connects with the people. And I think if we have that mentality of we're going to connect with people regardless of how long it takes. I mean, sometimes I stream for four hours. I might have three and a half hours of chatting and all intentionality of playing a game for two hours. Am I upset? No, because I got to do the things that was needed, which was connected to people. And God brings the right people to the channel. I always pray before my streams every single time that God brings the right people to the channel, that they get to hear the word, that they get love, they get encouraged, that they're seen, and that God works through me and through the community. And always I end up with somebody that's like, oh, I don't know what this is all about. I had a gentleman that came in yesterday who's an atheist who... loved what he saw and was being active in the conversation and even answering questions and and it was amazing to see him know that his voice was going to be heard even though he had different views than us but he still was not turned off by the fact that you know we were still talking about god yeah

Leighton Seys: Well, to just one last thought on the larger church, the larger streamer, they can do things smaller streamers can't. So they serve in a different role in different ways than I ever can as a small streamer. A large church can do things smaller churches can't. Now... That's what the beauty of the kingdom is, is the hand doesn't tell the foot that you're not valued. The eye doesn't get to say to the ear, I don't need you. We need all expressions of the church. We need the micro expressions. We need the digital expressions. We need the physical expressions. We need the mega expressions of the church because they are going to reach people that the other avenues of reaching aren't going to reach. I just want to make sure. I'm not disparaging them. That's not where my call is. And in the digital space, I see that smaller is going to reach further than larger is. If we had 10 Christian streamers that were pulling in 10,000 views, I don't know that we would be reaching people's hearts. We'd have a whole bunch of eyeballs and we'd have a bunch of content, but we'd be relying on the Holy Spirit to reach those people instead of another person in chat, instead of another person in a Discord server. So it's more of, as I look at how digital is going to spread, it really is going to spread from house to house, if you will, from stream to stream. I'm just going back to the model of what the disciples did. House to house is how they went. And then it's how it's going to spread here from stream to stream from one community to another community bringing the word to the people who haven't heard it before.

Bearded Baywolf: Yeah, absolutely. Completely agree with that. I think we have an opportunity in the smaller side of things to multiply better than, you know, if you had 10,000 people come, I mean, you know, 10,000 people come to Christ in a day, that'd be fantastic. It'd be unbelievable. But, you know, if we have an opportunity to connect with 25 people or 35 people or whatever it is, and intentionally have the mentality of, we're going to connect with you, whether we play a game or not, through wacky things, through things that I say, through... I mean, community has me do all sorts of wild and crazy things. And I do wild and crazy antics and stuff, not necessarily to bring in viewers, but to make them feel included and gives them a chance to have an opportunity to have a say in what we're going to do. And I think if we go into this platform with the mentality of I'm going to be this size of this channel or whatever. And God says, no, I don't want you to be there. There's a level of disappointment there. But if you go into the idea of, I don't care if I have one view or if I got 10 viewers, we're going to be intentional. We're going to love. We're going to be what Jesus wants us to be. God's going to bless that. And God's going to, you're going to, if you sow sparingly, you're going to reap sparingly. But if you sow bountifully, you're going to reap bountifully. It's all about your heart. And God loves a cheerful giver, whether it's in your money or your time. Something we've been talking about at church is, you know your resources and time is your most important thing and when you give it to god and give it to him everything that you have he's going to feed that he's going to you know give you that bounty that is worthy of what you're doing that's that's just really really powerful to think about that and to think about

Leighton Seys: Like one of the things that sometimes getting together physically is, it is a battle against time. It's going to take me this much time to get home from work. It's going to take me this much time to get dinner ready. It's going to take me this much time to get the kids ready. And now we can show up on a Wednesday night. Like that is all battle against time. And then when we get home, here's going to be the battle of time to get them in bed, to get myself ready for bed and all of those things. And that battle of time is a difficult thing. But if the battle of time is just, I show up, I pull my phone up, I sit in front of my computer, I'm already present immediately, the before and after can fade away. So you actually are fully present when you're present. That's one of the things that's just like amazing to me about that. And then I, like, we're not quite there. We're very, very close though of... I could go on 24-7 and probably find a Christian streamer I know that's on 24-7. I'm pretty close. I've come across a couple of days and times of the week where I'll pull it up as I happen to be up, and I'm like, I'm just going to go see if there's anyone I can watch, and I go, oh, wow, there's nobody on right now. Or on the weekends, because I'm not usually on on the weekends, so I don't have as many. Just because I don't know them doesn't mean they're not there. We are in the space 24-7 now. I just haven't networked to everybody. But I love that thought of... Anybody can go on at any time and find a Christian streamer that's available so that there's some voice out there that is being salt in the darkness and being light for those people. I should say salt in the darkness, light in the darkness, but salt in people's lives where they need it. And so that's just really fun to be a part of that.

Bearded Baywolf: It's amazing to see all of the people that are in chat that I see in so many other communities. And it's this... I don't know, it's almost somewhat of an echo chamber, if you will, if that makes sense. We're hearing the same thing. We're doing this. And so how do we become more inclusive to those outside? And I think that's the biggest thing of how do we get Jesus to twitch in a way that doesn't sound churchy, that doesn't sound so pragmatic, if you will, as to allowing people to know, hey, this is an open place. you know, loving people, encouraging people and getting their voices to be heard. Jesus didn't always go in and say, hey, you know, he didn't just go in straight preach and he went in to, you know, serve those people, love those people. And I think that we need more of that. There's nothing wrong with being churchy, but know that you might end up losing an opportunity to somebody who's been hurt by the church or disillusioned by the church or whatever. And so there's, that's where we talked about before we started streaming, there might be five or six different ways to do stream together. But there's probably an easier way. But there's not an exact perfect formula for us to do digital mission work, which is what makes this platform so unique because we all have our own gifts and talents that God has gifted us to sharing the gospel. And our talents and gifts are going to be able to connect those to him. But still, it's how do we continue to grow? How do we meet those people that might have been hurt or disillusioned by the church? Because sometimes it's like, man, I feel like I'm just talking to the same people, which is perfectly fine because that's how you build relationships, how you build community. But when those new people come in, my community is so welcoming. Hey, we're so glad that you're here. Where did you come from? We want to get to know who you are. That's something that we all strive to do.

Leighton Seys: Yeah. And there are people called to different spaces. I put pastor in my name, and there's a reason I put pastor in my name. I never wanted somebody to feel like I bait and switched them. But that doesn't mean that somebody else who's not a pastor, who's playing Fortnite, and then suddenly somebody says something about, yeah, this is what's going on in my life, and you say, hey, let me stop the game and I pray for you. You go, wait a minute, you're bait and switching me because I thought we were playing a video game. For me, I ran into that in life often. I'd go... pick up game of golf and and then suddenly someone would say what do you do for a living about the ninth hole and then they'd start apologizing for swearing at every bad shot they had through the first nine holes and i'm like i'm a person okay i don't need any of that i it's not part of like if i was offended i'd say something okay i'm an adult i can speak up for myself i just wanted to play the game with you i just wanted to enjoy this so i was feeling that thrust upon me but I'm also finding that just because I put myself in the category of I'm reading and learning the Bible doesn't mean only Christians show up. It also means that those Muslims who are in a Muslim country, who it's not safe for them to ask questions about the Bible. they can show up and lurk and learn and then, because they can't do that other places. They can do that in Twitch. But on the other side, I'm not called to go into a game that's really dark, go into horror games where there might be some really dark things going on and be salt and light in that space. Somebody else is. And so they're going to go in there. They're not going to use the Christian stream or streamer tag. They're not going to put any of those things in. And they're going to go in to be really, really dim light in a really, really dark place. So they don't need to be much light at all. But people will see, by the way they love and care for people, there's something different about you. And I'm going to be attracted to that. And I'm going to be drawn to you. So to your point of, yeah, sometimes we get the same people in our stream when we're going live. Some of that is our community that's going to love on people when they show up. But sometimes there's others who are sent out to darker places and they need to be more stealth mode to be able to permeate the darkness and to not scare everyone away. Because like... i'm sure you've you've seen this in movies if you've never seen it in real life you turn the lights on and all the roaches scatter because the light is turned on we don't want that for the gospel we want to just gradually to expose people to the light so they're drawn to it so they want to come in so they want to not be exposed to the light and hide their darkness they they want to be exposed to the light and then be drawn to it because they can't help but be attracted to it

Bearded Baywolf: Oh, absolutely. I completely agree that, you know, it's a game of inches. It's not a game of feet. It's taking it one small step at a time, and it's about intentionality. It's about connecting people to the reasons why you believe that, and that's why love and encouragement is something that is so important to me because... I think we hold on to the encouraging words just as much as we do the negative words. Oh, we have to. But we hear the negative words way more than we do the encouraging words. And so in those moments of despair, we're like, oh, man, this person really thought I was amazing or whatever it might be. And so that's why I'm all about trying to make sure that whether they believe it or not. We're going to love you. We're going to be a place where you're going to be heard. And I agree. I don't know how many times countless Muslims from the Middle East said that pop in my stream and say, hey, I believe this and this and this. Well, that's great. Here's where I believe this and this and this. And a lot of times they come in expecting to get that banhammer because they're like, well, that that that Christian is exactly what we were told that they were going to be like. But in reality. Jesus didn't come to create a religion. He came to create relationships. And when we get away from the whole idea of church and get back to the idea of relationships, we get back to the culture of what Jesus is wanting us to do. And we have the opportunities to turn the flip and flip the switch on so many people and shine that light into places that so desperately need it. And our communities allow us to give us that, you know, I wouldn't say the backbone, but gives us the backing to say, hey, we're there with you. We're going to go alongside you. We're going to help you shine that light. I mean, I still get nervous when somebody comes in with some biblical question, and I don't want to ever answer a question off the top of my head. I'm like, if I don't know the answer, I'm like, hit that follow button. Let me go look into the Bible and give you an answer because I don't want to make myself sound good. I want to make sure it's a biblically sound answer. And I think more times than often, they end up staying because they didn't get the answer that they're expecting, but they got the answer that they needed.

Leighton Seys: very true just shifting a little bit here what have been some difficulties as a streamer that you've had to face now they could be difficulties of the whole process of doing it or they could be difficulties of life happening outside of stream that could be drawing you away from that so what are some things that you have faced that you've had to overcome moving in this direction of being a streamer

Bearded Baywolf: You know, I think a lot of times I've been around long enough that I know stability is the biggest thing. You maintain a schedule, you stick to it, and that's how, you know, people either sustain or that they continue to grow. And so for the longest time, that was the hardest thing for me was, you know, balancing that stream life with family life. And initially I was streaming in the mornings from like nine until, you know, noon or so. And that seemed to work for a while. But then family got bigger and we were able to do stuff. So then it became a when can I stream? And so then I switched it from 11 to 3. And who knows, maybe in a couple years it might change. But it's maintaining that balance of spending time with my digital family and spending time with my physical family. My wife supports me 100% and loves that I get to do this. But at the same time, if something comes up, she knows that I will have to drop this and go help out with that. But it's also was finding what my niche was when it came to how do I connect people. i think as a streamer if you're not constantly slowly evolving and changing and adding things you're going to die i think that that's said with anything if you stop wanting to learn stuff you you start to waste away you don't continue to to improve yourself and even if it's just a one percent improvement over the day before then then you've not done what you needed to do and so it's constantly changing seeing what the community wants because you know they come to hang out with you but they also like to see new things and so trying things that work and don't work and what did work before i thought i was going to pigeonhole myself into the fact that i was going to be the weird guy that ate all the weird stuff because i did a lot of eating a lot of marmite and all sorts of nasty sodas and in my mind i'm like hey this is a quick cash grab type thing yeah but then in return i was like Oh, no, did I just put myself in the corner that they're only going to come hang out because I'm drinking the horrible, nasty tasting sodas and eating the horrible, nasty foods. And there's still challenges out there for me to eat a tarantula and sir strumming and all that kind of stuff, which Lord willing, if he wants it to happen, it'll happen. And we will do those things. I'm not looking forward to them. But it's the things that the community wanted. And I was glad to finally slowly inch my way out of that into where I'm at now. And what might work today might not necessarily work tomorrow. And so it's constantly making sure that I'm doing the right thing. But getting out of my head and making sure that God is leading it, that is the biggest thing. Because I get stuck looking at numbers. I get stuck looking at this because we're raising money for this. And I'm like, oh, I didn't raise enough money. But God says, just wait. You know what? On the last day, we're going to make this happen. And there's that sense of urgency that I'm like, oh, no, I didn't do enough. I didn't do this. And then suddenly I feel like a failure. But that's my earthly side sticking with it. And when I let go and let God take control of what he needs to do, those blessings flow. And that's a constant struggle that I kind of deal with is, you know, I have an amazing member in the community who comes in and she's like, what can I do to pray for you today? And I'm like, I don't know. I feel like I'm a broken record. It's the same thing, but it's the same thing I'm struggling with.

Leighton Seys: Right.

Bearded Baywolf: And I know that it's an amazing thing that somebody say, hey, I want to pray for you on that. And some days are better than others. But it's letting go of the control that I have and letting God take over what he said he's going to do in my life and allowing that to flourish.

Leighton Seys: Oh yeah, that's really good. And yeah, there are those struggles of, am I doing this too niche that nobody will come and show me? Am I going to become boring because I just keep doing the same thing? Because I've had that with some YouTube channels that I've watched for years and it was just like, all right, it's another one of these, but that's all they do. So- It's like they got into the content that has no escape out of that content. So when it all of a sudden becomes, well, this isn't as good as your old content. You're not as creative as you used to be. Yeah, you did another one along these lines. Okay, do I want to see it again? Bye. My daughter introduced me to, so this isn't one I've watched very often, but she introduced me to Will It Sausage? And it's essentially it. Will It Sausage? So I watched one or two, and I'm like, that's an interesting thought. I would wonder if that was sausage. Then it just becomes absurd. Can you take... euro and make a sausage out of euro why would you want to okay you're taking a you know a sandwich over here and making it sausage that's just gross like you're you're putting lettuce and tomato and bread in a sausage like no nobody wants this oh but that's what the gig is so it just becomes more absurd and absurd On top of that, that, well, it was like, that's not, now if you're just saying, okay, can you do this animal as sausage? Can you do this animal as sausage? And I like sausage. I might be inclined, but it went in that direction. I actually thought about this for a couple of minutes and then decided I didn't want to be that niche of it. I thought about... Will it wine? Because wine waking became my COVID hobby. And I started down that road of, I was at home sick. I needed some ginger and I ordered five pounds. I don't know what five pounds of ginger is. I just pick up two, you know, roots when I'm at the store. I didn't want to have too little. I knew it was way more than I needed. I just didn't know it was a bag this big. So then it was like, I bet I can make wine with that. I know you can make beer with that. Let's see if I can make wine. Boom. Best, best wine. It's amazing. So that just kind of got me down that road of, can I make wine with it? So I've made pumpkin wine, not super great. I've tried watermelon, really watered down. It's okay. It's a nice, you know, crisp summer drink. So it's like, I could have went that direction, but I was like, no, then people are going to give me absurd things. And I'm going to have to do that. And then I'm going to have to be on this, I need to make wine every week. I'm doing it as a hobby for fun. I don't want this to be my career of making wine, so I don't want that. My career is in talking about the Bible. That's what God has given me. That's what I'm good at. I'm still not the expert in the room most of the time because there's people that I'm listening to that are feeding me constantly, that I'm constantly learning new things, and I'm trying to grow. Even though I've been studying it for over 20, I feel like there's more I don't know today than I knew when I started, if that makes sense.

Bearded Baywolf: Oh, absolutely. No, I mean, it all says it's a marathon. It's not a race. We condition ourselves much like athletes do so that we can finish the good race. It's one of those things that, yeah, I know a fair amount of the Bible. In fact, in my men's group last night, we had to write encouraging words to somebody else in the group that we've seen over the last six weeks. And what the guy wrote about me was like something that I definitely needed. I told my wife, I said, I was not feeling it last night. I just was not feeling like I don't want to leave the house and go to church for a couple of hours and hang out with a bunch of guys and then come home. But God says, no, and I went because I knew I needed to go, and I'm glad I did because we ended up coming up with some amazing conversation and then this thing that really, really re-solidified what I do on this platform. He says that I have a gift of Scripture knowledge and how to apply it and speak it in a way that everybody can understand and not make them feel like they're dumb. And I was like, oh, my goodness gracious. I never – and it's just because – God's gifted me the ability to read the word and comprehend it. But I still don't feel like I'm definitely, definitely, definitely not the expert in the room. I've just skimmed the surface of it. But it's because I spend time in the word and I let God do what he does so well, which is use my talents for his. Glory allows me to have the opportunity to connect to people. And I will never tell you that I'm the smartest guy in the room. I don't even feel like it's funny. I'm just loud. I scream encouragement in people's lives.

Leighton Seys: That's what I do. I yell. I have a growly voice. There's the quote on a T-shirt. I scream encouragement into people's lives. Would you like some?

Bearded Baywolf: Yes, and absolutely. I'm in the process of trying to come up with some new merch. And so I love that idea. And so we're going to turn that into it because I'm like, I don't know what I need to do. And it's like. It's not for everybody. Believe me, I know that. Some people don't necessarily want to be screamed at. We have serious conversations, but at the heart of it, it's all family-friendly. We can have those adult conversations in a manner that my grandmother, if she was still sitting beside me, I would not be ashamed. And that's why I would say, if your grandmother is sitting right beside you, would you be comfortable with those conversations? Because my grandmother was the lady that literally greeted every single person at church when they walked in. She was the matronly lady that would just speak life into people. And legend as I always said, I'm like the Barnabas, the encourager on this. And I never thought about it. And I was like, you know, oh, my goodness gracious, you might be right. But it's taken me. years to get to that point. And do I feel like I'm still not there? And I never will be. I mean, it's a constant battle. God works with what we've got and he's going to make it for his glory. We've got to just get out of our out of our own heads sometimes and just say, you know what? No, just give it to God and let him do what he does so well. And whether it was a success or not, even if one person knows Jesus and comes to build a relationship with him. I did my job. I could care less at the end of the day if you guys forget who I am or forget who you are. But if you guys remember Jesus Christ, then we did our job. And I think it's not about I'm never going to have a statue erected in my honor. I would hope not because I don't want that. Will I have books written about me? I hope not. But my name is in the book of life, and that's what matters.

Leighton Seys: Well, from the standpoint of I would say I hope so so that people could hear the story of Jesus in me. From that point, I would agree from the books part, the statue is a very interesting thing. I don't want a statue of me. Nobody's coming to see that unless it's just a head with a nice hat. You get to switch hats on me. That would be fun.

Bearded Baywolf: You'd have about 40 busts for all the different hats.

Leighton Seys: Just a few, just a few. To go back to one thing I was curious about. So you talked about doing a bunch of eat gross stuff and try gross stuff. What was the grossest thing that you've ever tried on stream?

Bearded Baywolf: Oh, boy. So we've done Marmite. The Ranch Soda. The Ranch Soda, probably one of the worst things. Actually, last month or the month before I ate Scorpion, that was really, really hard to put down. The thing was is I purchased it, and it did not come in one piece. it was like it got shuffled through the mail and so it was in a bunch of different pieces okay and my initial thought was i'll just take a piece out and and somebody said no if you do that you'll never eat the whole thing so i just down the whole thing and it was yeah so the ranch flavored soda by far the worst thing okay I still can't really stomach Marmite, but I also do it. You did it. I don't do it. I did it by the spoonful. You're supposed to just put a little film over the toast or whatever. It's supposed to be amazing. I don't know what it is. Durgo, who's a member of my community, he's down in New Zealand. He actually posted a picture of Marmite. I'm like, you could have posted a picture of a mountain. And instead you post a picture of Marmite. Why? Because it connected Marmite to me. And so I recognize that that portion of who I was is where I'm at now. And I'm glad that I don't necessarily have to do all that stuff. I will still do some wild and crazy food items and stuff. But thank you, Lucius, for that. Yeah, she definitely had to showcase the Marmite emote. But, you know... really i kind of was able to get away from that and get to the encouragement and love and and that's really what i think if you were to leave my channel you would know that you were encouraged that you were seen and that you were loved and the rest of that stuff is gravy so to speak and what might work today might not work tomorrow and what didn't work today might end up working tomorrow and that's where You constantly, as a streamer, as a human being, you just have to constantly keep growing and keep learning new things. God doesn't show you the exact path of your life, because if he did, you'd probably run away.

Leighton Seys: Oh, I totally agree. Totally agree. If he told me everything I was supposed to be doing on stream five years ago, I'd have said, no way, man. I'm not doing a podcast. Like, I said that anyway. Stream, I'm not streaming. Like, why would I, like, I keep getting... Okay, I'll say yes, but I'm going to argue with you until I actually do it. You know, I'm like the parable of the person that says, no, I'm not going to do it, the son, and then he feels bad and he goes and does it. I'm that guy. I'm going to feel bad and then I'm going to go do it. But I'm going to tell you I don't want to until then.

Bearded Baywolf: Absolutely. Yeah. And I think that's why God just illuminates the path in front of us. He opens doors and does small things that redirects us to where we're supposed to be. And sometimes it takes a lot longer than we need to, but those life experiences lend itself to a more rich opportunity for you to connect to people.

Leighton Seys: I want to go in a little bit different direction here because what I want to focus on, and I haven't focused on this with other people, is really the creating a space where you, and we've talked about a little bit, you're not the expert in the room. You are a relatable person that people believe is true and genuine. And so one of the ways you can do that is like... eating horrible things and genuinely telling how horrible they are. That's a genuine thing. Other people will do that by putting on onesies or those things or different ears and stuff. So you've got a thing with ties. And I want you to explain this and show us because not everyone's going to understand. And it's a thing that's like, it's something that's like quirky and relatable in a way that's like, well, I'm not going to do that, but I want to see you do that. So can you kind of, for those people who don't know, talk about the ties?

Bearded Baywolf: So, you know, it's funny. I really have to really dig deep into thinking about what it was. But initially, the idea was for any new subs or resubs, I throw additional T-shirts on. And initially, it was even for gifted subs as well. And so one day, I was literally looking like the state of a marshmallow, man. I couldn't even – the wife had to pull me out of the shirts. I had like 60 or 70 shirts on. I don't remember what it was. It was uncomfortable. And so – I did a challenge where the community got to choose articles of clothing for me to wear. And on a specific stream, I wore all of those wacky, wild, and crazy clothes. And I wanted to continue to showcase gifted subs in a very unique way. And one of my mods said, what about just putting ties on? I'm like, oh, that's such a great idea. And so I said, but we're not going to wear a tie the regular traditional way because that's boring. And so I still continue to this day putting the ties on. I wear them over my head, over my ears. It looks like I'm a Jamaican man with dreads. And I still throw the T-shirts on. And so it's an opportunity for people to come in and see the craziness. And then I have a onesie costume that if we hit a certain goal, I put that on. If we hit another goal, then I dance an Irish jig in that onesie costume. It gets really, really warm and gets really, really hot. I'm glad I got fans. And in the winter months, I absolutely love it because it does keep me warm. But it was one of those things that I've had to go to my dad and get more ties because I run out of ties. And it's just like... I think that will always be a part of who I am. Even if I continue to get bigger and bigger and bigger, I'll always want to showcase the importance of that. And now I've actually thought about adding bow tie clips in for X amount of gifted subs. So if somebody gives five subs, I'll put a little bow in my beard. Saw that from another streamer. I thought, man, that's such a really kind of unique, different way of doing it. And if it works, it works. If not, then hey. You know, I just bought 60 different bows that my wife will eventually get a wear. So it works out. It's a win-win. And so the ties is just a different way for me to connect to the people and showcase the generosity that they have. I've always said, you know, I don't expect anybody to sub. I don't expect anybody to give subs or bids or donations or anything at all. I just want you to be there so I can love you. I can encourage you and lift you up. The money is absolutely amazing and I'm so grateful for it because 90% of the time it's going right towards church camp. Very small amount of it goes back into the stream. And there's some months where God just blesses us and we get a bill paid or something comes up that just unexpected that this payout just happens to fall. And it's not by accident. It's by God.

Leighton Seys: And

Bearded Baywolf: We've been able to raise money for some amazing charities. We raised money for a member, Sassy Mangle, who was in the process of moving, and literally the money that we gave her was exactly the amount of money that she needed.

Leighton Seys: I've done the raising for charity and feel like this wasn't enough, but you didn't know what was actually needed, and then you give it, and I was like, that was the exact amount. You're like, how? How was it the exact? There's like no way other than God. making it the exact amount that someone needs. And then there's other times it's just above and beyond, and it's just like massive blessing that you can't expect. And it's amazing when God just was, I'm just going to open the fountain up of blessing, and this is just going to overwhelm this person, and you're going to get to talk about it. It's super cool how that happens.

Bearded Baywolf: I mean, it's just one of those things that it's just a different way for me to connect to the community. And it's so funny when I go back and look at, like, the VODs and stuff, and I always pick a picture, and nine times out of ten, it's always me covered in ties or T-shirts or something. I'm like, of all the pictures you could have chose, the stream moment, you chose that one. And it goes all the way into even some of the shorts that I post on YouTube or when I was posting stuff to TikTok. It's just a way of thanking the community because it really is. I think Montana Misfit Soldier of God says it's God's money. Let us bless you. And I completely agree. But it's still my human side saying, no, I don't want that. I don't need that. It's not necessary. But it's an opportunity for God to bless us in such a unique way. And I've leaned into it, and I plan on continuing that on.

Leighton Seys: Yeah, and this is one of the things I really love is when things uniquely grow out of the community together. So the ties uniquely grows out of the community. Now it has become a thing that is you, but it wasn't like you sat down to create it. It was an evolving process within the community, and I did just for you. I brought a few ties today.

Bearded Baywolf: Oh, well, thank you, sir.

Leighton Seys: Oh, I love that. So I brought my ties that are scripture-based or ones, you know, power of prayer and then a cross and some hands on there and then just the raise up like eagle's wings. That's a pretty cool tie.

Bearded Baywolf: Please tell me you've got one with some hats on it.

Leighton Seys: I have one with football helmets on it. I did not bring that one here. I just brought my scripture, you know, Easter-focused ties. But, yeah, it's one of those things where I have a tremendous tie collection and, like, never wear a tie. Like, I will do a sermon series. So I did this a while ago. I did a sermon series, and I don't remember what the theme of it was, but every Sunday I wore a different sports tie. So that's why I got some football helmets is because I had one for sports teams. And then I also have one for the alma maters for where my kids graduated from. So I can, if I showed up to their graduation, I'm wearing a tie. If I show up to any, I'll never wear those hardly again because they're, you know, not going to go do events at their school. But I can show up repping the right way if I need to.

Bearded Baywolf: Absolutely. Well, it's funny because, you know, my, my father, you know, any typical father is going to get ties gifted from their kids. It's just the, the atypical father's day Christmas gift. And so it's funny that the ties that I ended up inheriting from my father, the ones that I've actually purchased him over the course of the years. I mean, he's had to wear a suit and ties at his job. And then when he was working at the movie theater as a district manager, he always had to wear ties to dress up. And so he was constantly getting new ties. And so I still don't have enough ties for some of the generosity of the community. And I put them all on as I possibly can. can it's even got to the point where we've had to pull out my wife's scarves and put some of those on as well and it's just it but i i agree it's it's not something that i went in saying i'm going to do this and this is going to be it was one of those of the community came together and created this thing and they are able to get behind it they love it and so it would be foolish of me not to to honor that i mean it doesn't take away from anything and it doesn't really add anything other than a little more sweat on my head but they feel included in that and that's what we're all trying to do is we're trying to make this platform as inclusive as we possibly can in a way that even though they're on a device you know 3 000 miles away they're still included in the conversation and and knowing what's going on and and that's really the intentionality of what we're trying to do here

Leighton Seys: Oh, yeah, it's super fun. Now, I would have a lot more ties than I currently have. I inherited my grandfather's tie collection at one point and then a lot of ties from my dad. But I've also gone overseas. And in some of those places where I went overseas, the expectation for men was that you wore a tie to church. And ties were not easy to come by. So we collected scarves for the women and we collected ties for the men and we brought them overseas. I mean, I brought an entire suitcase full of ties on one occasion. And then everybody that was at the event, the retreat, was able to take several ties home. And please pass them on. Don't hoard them. You have one for yourself. Give away the rest of them. And if you want to borrow them back from the person you're loaning them to, feel free to do that. So give it to a responsible person who'll care for it and loan it back to you. But Bless others as you've been blessed. Give and spread out. I brought my tie collection down to probably about a dozen and then it's grown back up again. And I probably need to clean it out again. I probably need to clean it out. So maybe I'll send a few ties your way.

Bearded Baywolf: Oh, I would absolutely love that. I would definitely represent those in the best way. Well, the community would allow me to represent those. Let's say that. uh because it is it's it's one of those things that it's it's never i never go into any particular stream or anything saying okay i need to hit this many subs then you hit that much bits and all that stuff i just go in saying hey whatever happens happens and if it does then it does if it doesn't hey we still got to have an opportunity to love each other and encourage each other and and it's i think I think if more people recognize that instead of having this agenda of I need the money for this and that, I have a fantastic, phenomenal job that provides and pays for the bills and all this stuff. This is the hobby. And would I love to turn it into a full-time career? Absolutely would love to. But I know in my older age that that is probably never going to happen. So I'm going to take advantage of every opportunity that I get because I don't know how long I'm going to have to be able to do this. None of us know. I mean, time is the thing that we all fight against. And so there's a sense of urgency, whether you live – you know, 50 years, 70 years, 90 years, there's this still in the grand, you know, grand speck of time. It's just that, a speck. It's a blink of the eye. And so what you do with your time here on Earth dramatically influences what happens after we die. And, you know, whether we get to go to heaven or we don't. I mean, you know, I heard it said best that Christians, this is the closest side to hell we'll ever see. But for those that don't believe this is the closest side to heaven that they'll ever see. And I want that to be the other way around. We want everybody to go to heaven. And unfortunately, it's a very narrow path, a very lonely path. And so trying to make sure that we do what's best for the community, making sure that we love them and be intentional. That's what we're trying to do.

Leighton Seys: Well, let's just kind of go in that direction then. What have been some real blessings that you've seen on stream? Either something that the community blessed you or a blessing that happened to community or it could be an answer for any of those kinds of things like two or three stories of impact that you've seen as a streamer.

Bearded Baywolf: You know, I would say probably one for sure, Captain America has been a massive, massive blessing to the community from a generosity standpoint. He's gifted quite a few subs, so many people had the opportunity to be able to watch ad-free, and I think... Ads are a necessary evil on this platform, and a lot of people tend to switch off when those ads happen. So you get the opportunity to watch ad-free. You tend to want to stay around. But he's been able to be very generous and help out, and it's allowed me to send myself, my kids, and a couple other kids to church camp. Getting to just know people. outside of who they really are on this platform, getting to love them, getting to actually purchase Bibles for people. That's been such a blessing to me because, and that goes to anybody here, if anybody needs a Bible, please don't hesitate to say something. We want to make sure that you get the word. know from a generosity standpoint last year i did a challenge where for every single sub i would blow a balloon up and put the person's name on it cue captain america and he just went crazy and i literally spent almost an hour blowing up balloons for the amount of subs that he gifted and our little nephew which was three at the time was on the other side of the room and i blew him all up and opened up the door he walked in and his eyes just went as big as saucers he was like Whoa, and I said, yeah, that was the generosity of somebody. And the idea was at the end of the month, I had names written on those. At the end of the month, I was going to randomly grab one of those balloons and pop it, and whoever's name was on that was going to get a gift card. Well, the gentleman that won it, which was not Captain America, incidentally, he said, you know what? I might have won the $50 gift card, but hey. Put it towards your ministry. Put it towards the church camp. And I was like, it's the generosity and the love of the people. It's the lasting relationships. I mean, seeing people just go out of the way to just be encouraging and loving and knowing that even I need that in moments where I try to put my best foot forward. But some days are like, yeah, you're just kind of seem a little off. Well, let me speak some encouragement into you. I've got messages saved. that I had a screenshot saying that you're the reason why we still, you know, do the things that we do. And I'm like, I'm not the reason, it's God. but I appreciate and I know the sentiment. And so it's just Captain America, Mama Belle, getting to know her entire family. She said that we're more family to them than her actual family. Building those relationships, to me, that's the most important thing. It's not the monetary standpoint. It's not those things. It's getting to have those genuine relationships. Those are the big Ws for me.

Leighton Seys: Yeah, the people that don't have the best healthy relationships in their family, being able to show them what healthy relationships look like is a really powerful thing to be able to do. I mean, I run into people who tell stories that I don't want to repeat because they're stories that are pretty horrible about how people gaslight them, how people abuse them, how people have been taken advantage of them. And then they tell me it's a family member. And I'm just like, that's so horrible. And yet, and yet, if I were to tell you stories of my family, they're not great. They're they aren't great. Like my family isn't like the people I want to go spend time with. They're not the ones I'm going to go hang on vacation with. I know people that go on vacation, like my wife's family. I'll just pick on them for a minute. They would, like, all of the sisters would go on vacation together with their families. They all go RVing. They all go to the same place the same weekend every year. And I can't even fathom going on vacation with my relatives. Like, what do you mean, like, 30, 40 cousins are all on vacation together? I don't know what that is. I have no concept. I can't fathom it. It just seems so forward to me. Yet, on the other hand... Show up at a conference with three, four hundred streamers and their communities like this is amazing and I understand it. But show up with 30 family members that are going to be peaceful and loving on each other. I don't I don't grasp that at all, which is sad.

Bearded Baywolf: I see that because my mom's side of the family, we used to have family reunions where there would be 70 or 80 of us. We'd all go to Washington State. We'd go to an actual church camp because it was the only place big enough for us to be. We'd get together every five years, and we'd all connect, and it was all. stories and it was all that love it was the weirdest thing it was like a hallmark story so to speak it was just it didn't make a lot of sense but we we loved each other we'd spend five or six days with each other then we go our separate ways my dad's side of the family totally a different story yeah and so i have had the opportunity to see both sides of it yes family can be very healthy or it can be very very unhealthy and i don't know what anybody in chat brings to the channel i could meet them at the the energy that they're bringing and that's going to create a bigger problem i grew up in in retail and and i knew that the two-minute interactions that i would have with those people i wanted to make sure those the best moments of their day whether they had the best day of their life or the worst day of their life i want to make sure i put a smile on their face because i don't know what they're dealing with The same goes with the community here. I don't know what anybody is carrying. I don't know what anybody is dealing with. And this is the opportunities for me to speak life into them and love them. And in return, they do the same to me. And so this, the relationship, the relational side of this, that I love more than anything else. It's my wife doesn't like going to church with me because I will stand there and talk for three hours. She's like, I'm taking a separate car because you're going to stay and talk.

Leighton Seys: I totally understand the separate car. As a pastor, that's pretty much been the way it was throughout ministry. I should say, with the exception of where I was doing an internship and it was a 45 minute to an hour drive to go to the church, we didn't take a separate car then. But after I had my first call, it was within a couple of months. It's like, we're going to take a separate car to church. we're not waiting around for you we're gonna we're gonna take off when we need to and what's what's really funny this is not related to to church in that regard but i lived in a parsonage with one of the churches it was a walk across the parking lot to to go to church and my wife worked remote from home and we put 40 000 miles a year on our vehicle oh my

Bearded Baywolf: Holy cow. That's impressive.

Leighton Seys: None of it was to drive to church and none of it was to drive to work. And we put 40,000 miles on our vehicle in a year.

Bearded Baywolf: Wow. That's crazy. I mean, that's why I think I thrive so well on this platform because I can literally sit there and have a conversation with anybody regardless of what they want to talk about. We can find common ground on anything for the most part.

Leighton Seys: Well, I don't know. Can you find common ground with anybody with the helmet in your background?

Bearded Baywolf: I mean, that's a very good question. I mean, that is definitely a very, very contentious point of view. But we still, I mean, I've got quite a few members in the community that are not Chiefs fans at all.

Leighton Seys: I got a raid coming in. Hang on a second.

Bearded Baywolf: Okay, absolutely.

Leighton Seys: Hey, welcome in, Wordy Girl. You know, I see one of these things I need to do. I don't have my podcast set up for what screen do I go to for Raiders coming in. So, Wordy Girl coming in with the Raid. Do you know Wordy Girl?

Bearded Baywolf: Oh, I absolutely do know Wordy Girl. She's an amazing, amazing streamer.

Leighton Seys: I thought you did. So, Wordy Girl coming in. Bam Bina DeLuce. DeLuce is awesome. i guess it's loose de luce hello hello hello word up sorry i haven't heard that song in a while word up that that was an old song who else is coming in wordy girl good to see you friend thank you for trusting your community here and bringing them over those that are coming over with wordy girl what is it that you love about wordy girl if you can tell me two three wonderful things about her i love her very much by the way this is this is not true of anyone else in the chat I have gone roller skating with wordy girl. I have gone roller skating with wordy girl. It was a lot of fun. My wife and I went roller skating with her and her mother, and that was a lot of fun. So what is it you love about wordy girl? I love her smile. So you can't take that one and I'll leave the rest to you to add to the conversation. those that do not know i am a flat cap dapper pastor i have hats i have a lot of them you can't see they're off screen i have a lot of fish and so you'll see my hats my fish and me reading the bible on my other channel flat cap dapper pastor over here where you came in and raided is The Church Digital, where I do a podcast where I bring in wonderful friends of mine, and we talk about what it's like being Christian and being in Twitch space and being salt and light in the space. So today we have Bearded Beowulf. So Bearded, why don't you just say a few things to everybody coming in?

Bearded Baywolf: Well, welcome in. I guess I'll just do my normal spiel. I am Bearded Beowulf, a Christ-following content creator. We talk about family, friends, food, gaming. We talk about anything and everything, but most importantly, we talk about the love of God and how much God loves us. We want to love and encourage you. And whether you believe in God or not, know that you're going to be valued, you're going to be respected, you're going to be treated with love. We're so blessed to have you here today, and thank you so much for that amazing, great word. You're an absolute phenomenal, amazing. Absolutely got to wear that flat cap for her, for him.

Leighton Seys: Yes, Wordy Girl also, when she was on the podcast, had her flat cap on as well. So thank you for the follow there, Bambita. Appreciate that.

Bearded Baywolf: Oh, and a follower goal met. Let's go.

Leighton Seys: Yes, we just hit. I was going to say, we just hit a second follower goal, you know, because they're increments of five. So we've had, let's see, how many today? I don't know how many. It's probably close to 10. Probably close to 10 followers today. And that's getting us close to... Thank you, thank you. We're getting close to the 500 follower goal. So I'm getting close to... Actually, I probably have hit... uh a year of the podcast so really close to getting a year of the podcast i'll have to go look and see when i hit episode 52 but date wise i've probably been a year of the podcast and almost a 500 that feels really really amazing because i think there were less than 400 when I started the podcast. So gaining over a hundred people with streaming one podcast a week and one two hour gaming session a week, that's pretty remarkable to me to have that many people coming in and following and adding to it. I should actually probably go look and see what my actual followers were before the podcast. I know right after I started using the channel, we made Affiliate. It had previously been used by the Church Digital for doing some podcasts, and then it sat empty for about two years. And they were like, do you want it? And we talked about what would you do? And this is what came out of it, and it's so much fun. Yeah, it's fun to meet those goals, even though they're small and you just keep making them. God is just like, hey, here's this more confidence that God is using you.

Bearded Baywolf: Absolutely. It's just those little things and the little things that add up and make such a big difference and shows that, you know, even just one follower shows that somebody believes in you. Because not everybody's going to hit that heart, you know. They don't have to. But it's amazing for them when they do that. I always give them all the hype and they're legends for literally following the channel because they don't have to do that. They could just skate off into the sunset, so to speak, or sit in the back in the lurking pew and just enjoy that. And I'm so thankful for that as well.

Leighton Seys: Yeah, I totally appreciate those things. And one of the things I think I've learned to celebrate more openly are the little things to celebrate. Because like when you're busy in the middle of a church service, like little tiny things, people look at you like, why are you going to spend time talking about that? Because there's an agenda, there's a schedule, and you're done with things. So a couple of times a year I could pull this off, but I couldn't do it every week. I couldn't just get excited about somebody that gave a follow. I couldn't just get excited about somebody that brought a visitor. I couldn't just get excited. don't want to embarrass a visitor you know i'm not i'm not doxing anybody who's a visitor in a physical church not doing that so you can't just do those things and have people scatter but a couple of times a year you could do a yay god sunday what have we seen god doing in our midst over the last six months over the last year what did god show up and then we also did so kind of like your postcards kind of like your postcards, I would write yay gods to other people to say, what have I seen in your life? So like when people come in and I ask, what do you love about Wordy Girl? This would be the postcard you would write. Here's what I've seen. Here's what I've witnessed you got up to in your life. And we send a, you know what, maybe that's something I need to do on my channel. Because I've never felt like doing the postcard thing. But maybe I need to do yay God postcards to people, which I've done in real life, but I've never done on my stream, and send those. Here's what I've seen God do in and through you. So it's going to have to be one of those. You have to be around for me to see and know God's up to something in your life. But I also did this, and it would die at some point. It never would continue the way I wanted it to. For every one you receive, write three more. So if I write one to every leader in my church and then a dozen, two dozen more people, and every leader writes three of them to someone else, and now all of those people do, this should be an all-year-round event that never ends.

Bearded Baywolf: Oh, absolutely.

Leighton Seys: But within three weeks it would end because people wouldn't actually go and write one. They wouldn't even write one for every one they got. You could maintain it if you wrote one for every one you got. They would just at some point not write one. Oh, absolutely. And I really wished I could have that spontaneously be an ongoing thing that never ended. It would be really, really cool.

Bearded Baywolf: Well, full disclosure, I'm not the greatest at getting those postcards out as fast as I want to. I've got about four or five that I've got to sit down and write. I typically try to get three or four of them together so then I can just go buy stamps real fast and send those out. So I will be better at doing that. That's going to be me being fully transparent. But there's something important about it, though. And it's like I said, you know, the note that I got last night at that church was like – You know, those words of encouragement, and I know some of the members of the community that have received those say, hey, I put that on my desk front and center, so I see that all the time because it's so very, very important to see. There's something special about a handwritten letter, and it's so very, very personal, and you know that they had to take the time and deal with the writer's cramp and all of that stuff to get through that. I don't know. To me, there's something special about opening up the mail and seeing something that you weren't expecting to get or anything like that. Right now, we're doing a deal with the end of Camp Beowulf. We've got these amazing badges that we've been giving out. They're 500 bits, and I've been really, really good at getting those mailed out because if you're willing to spend the bits on those, we're going to get those out. The Channel 4 redemption is that, and that's not a good excuse at all. And I said that yesterday on stream, but it's an opportunity for us to... really be intentional and then i sometimes throw a little special note in some of those and it's funny enough i sent that um sent one of those badges to somebody who redeemed it and they wanted another one and another person redeemed an additional one said send it to the send it to somebody you think and i knew instantly who was going to go to and they were going through a lot of stuff so i went and just wrote them a little little note and i mailed it off didn't tell them and the next day i received an email notification stating that somebody purchased some of my merch jen said hey this is all for the kids i'm like oh my goodness gracious and it was the same people that i sent this to it was god working in before a situation and through the situation like we were talking about earlier and i was like wow that this is this is amazing and i said you're going to be getting something special in the mail like what did you do i'm like You're going to just find out. And they were completely, absolutely. It showed up the same day as the other stuff. And so it was like designed.

Leighton Seys: Oh, yeah, that's so, so amazing. I love those little things like that. But also I totally resonate with, oh, I have one to write. It's not easy to get into gear to write one postcard. It's like when I sat down to do those yay God things, I probably could be doing it all year, but I didn't. It was a whole lot easier for me to get in the zone and sit down and say. i'm writing about all of these people i pray about what what i'm you know what should i write what have i seen god what have you been up to and then going from person to person i have my list there and then the next person's name wasn't necessarily the next person on the list it was this is the person i need to write to next and so i would begin to write that one write it out and then it would be whose name is next and so i know i'm going through all of these people, their names are on the cards. I just would flip through and go, oh, that's the one I got ready. Then I'd start writing. And then, oh, that's the one that's ready. So I get the, it's easier when you're doing multiple blessings to people and sending them out than just to do one off of, oh, I have to think of what to say or how to say it. I know what I want to say, but can I put it together? It's that flow of the spirit that can move through you when you are just, you know, blessing other people that I think is really, really cool.

Bearded Baywolf: Yeah, absolutely. It's a moment of intentionality. And it's funny because, you know, I have a blast of encouragement, Channel Point Redemption, where I just, you know, say some positive things about the person. And that's another one of those things that Captain Slothbeard has said, hey, can I take that? And I said, absolutely. I don't own the rights to any of this stuff. Oh, yeah.

Leighton Seys: Exactly.

Bearded Baywolf: Please, please take it. And if you do a better job with it, then, you know, that's absolutely amazing. So he's taken that and created a blast of encouragement on his channel. And so he'll pop into my stream and he will redeem those, not for himself, he says, for the next person in chat. So then it becomes a challenge of who's going to type into the chat first to get that blast of encouragement. It's just one of those things that initially was a thought of, hey, you know, this is a way for me to yell encouragement to somebody's life. That's then taken its own twist of things. And, you know, you're going to get the encouragement whether you want it or not. And nine times out of ten, people are like, wow, I didn't know that I needed it right then and there. And they're like, well, blast your encouragement for yourself. I'm like, absolutely will not yell a blast of encouragement to myself because that's not the point of it. I can sit there and stare at a mirror and say, oh, you're great. And inevitably, it ends up goading the community into saying wonderful things about me, and it makes me cry every single time. It's one of those other things that has been an absolute blessing is getting to create something and seeing it kind of take a life of its own in other communities and being like, you know, I kind of had a small hand in that, but really that was God working through that.

Leighton Seys: Yeah, I love how you can see something and then own it yourself. It's one of these things within pastors and churches. I can't remember how the phrasing goes, but it's like so-and-so said, and then it would be like, like I've always heard, and then you switch to, it's like I've always said. and so like one of those one of those statements that i can't remember where i first heard it and who i took it from but i'll i'll say on my stream when i'm reading the bible i'm a hundred percent convinced that eighty percent of what i believe is a hundred percent correct the problem is i don't know which is the 80 and the 20. now somebody might have been using 90 and 10 and whatever it is but it's like that phrase i've i've said it so often i've weaved it into my own it now is what i say but I can't remember where I got it because it was so long ago and it went through several iterations and now this is what I say. But also like the hat thing really wasn't like me coming up with something creative. It was a bunch of people that, oh, you know what they have behind them? They have their shoes and they have them on a shelf and they have a bunch of, you know, whatever they collect on a shelf behind them. So how do I do that? Well, I found a way to do that. First, I got a black bookshelf. That was a bad idea. You couldn't see anything. There was no lights in it. It didn't work. It was just what I could get, and I'm like, I should have bought the white one. Well, and then I happened to really be blessed to live by furniture manufacturers, and they have a surplus store. So each one of those sheets of glass in there, $5.

Bearded Baywolf: Oh, wow.

Leighton Seys: So they are six foot long sheets of glass for five dollars. And I built the whole shelf together. So it's that's amazing. Yeah. So it's not that I'm an amazing builder. It was I have an amazing access to things and and then put them all in there. So they they light up really well, I think.

Bearded Baywolf: I've got coffee mugs behind me, you know, and it's one of those things that it wasn't like I wanted to collect coffee mugs. I play guitar every once in a while. In fact, I one of the things that loses was like, I want to hear you play guitar. And I am so not necessary. I don't mind playing guitar, but I don't want to come on here and start playing guitar. Look at me type thing. Right. It becomes a very showman show type thing. And music is very, very big in my life. And so I said, before your year of following me is up, I will play some guitar for you. And literally the last day before the year is up, I played some guitar for her. So I was able to do that. But, you know, yeah, the coffee mugs, it's one of those things that's, you know. I love shoes too, but I don't necessarily have to showcase them. I love sports. I love building stuff. I love doing all sorts of stuff. I'm not the greatest at building things, but... It's just my way of getting to show it, and you're probably wondering about Diane. Diane is from a 24-hour stream with a fellow streamer. We were playing a game of Fortnite. They had ChatGPT in the game at the time with the Star Wars event, and Darth Vader would call you by the skin name. not by the the the streamer name and her skin was diane and so we for you know it was a 24 hour stream this was like two o'clock in the morning when i'm literally about to pass out and we started screaming diane and said i got to turn that into something that's going to be on the channel and so diane constantly just floats around the earth and she's been kind of stuck up in in the north she's been down in the south pacific but it's just one of those things that small things that we that i try to incorporate that is very generic very genuine to the community and uh if there's an opportunity for me to do so then then i definitely try to do my best so yeah but i know you also collected stickers as well right or do you still do that Well, maybe one of those camp badges might find their way towards you, my friend.

Leighton Seys: Well, a badge isn't a sticker, though.

Bearded Baywolf: I mean, this is true. It's a sticker, though.

Leighton Seys: Oh, it's a sticker badge? Oh, okay. Okay. You said badge. I thought it was. Oh.

Bearded Baywolf: No, it's an actual badge. It's waterproof. They're fade resistant. And definitely going to probably send one your way, my friend.

Leighton Seys: I would absolutely love that. Love that. uh have have two mugs completely full the thing that i'm working on is since i started bicycle streaming last year is working on my two water bottles for my bicycles to totally cover those i have my laptop is completely covered and then i also so non-streamer friends get to go on my luggage so i've got a whole bunch of ministry all over my luggage that's covered and it's like i keep adding more and some like the luggage ones get abused they wear off so i just came back from a conference with probably a dozen or two dozen stickers that i have to figure out where i'm putting those so it's a it's a constant thing for me now like i i think i only decided to be the sticker person three years ago I had Ukulele for Worship sticker, and I had Christian Ninja sticker, and a couple other people that I had supported, and they sent me stickers. I'm like, I'm not a sticker person. What am I going to do? And then I just decided, no, I'm going to be the sticker person. So I bought these two mugs, I want to say three years ago in January, filled them up within six months, and then filled up my laptop, and then I've been growing since then, and then trying to figure out new stickers for myself. Which, by the way, I have one for the podcast, too.

Bearded Baywolf: oh there we go i don't say i didn't think i was a sticker person either my wife is i would go different places and get her stickers and she put them all over her mugs um but you know when i was coming up with this this idea of camp beowulf which is my homage to summer camp we've been doing a three-month style camp where i've had all sorts of different challenges that have been camp related uh with merch and all sorts of stuff it's like man i want him to get a badge because you know people you know earn badges at camp yeah And so I looked it up, so I did the sticker, and I'm like, after I did that, I was like, man, I've kind of been bitten with the sticker bug. And so I'm like, ooh, there's stickers there. I want that sticker. I want this sticker. And so it's like stickers are such a unique way of showcasing and sharing the love that you have in an easy way to just let other people showcase it in a rather unique way. I mean, I would say they can put them on their kids. They probably wouldn't stick very long, but they can. but it's such a unique thing. I love them.

Leighton Seys: Yeah. And it, you know, I, I wish more times people would, you know, cause I bring these everywhere. I wish more times people would ask me about my stickers and they, they're just such a prevalent thing that most people don't, you know, there's, there's people like that. Well, you can even just buy a mug that's already stickered. So you don't even have to do with the work of actually knowing anybody that's on there, you know, which my minus, I want to know the people that are on my stickers.

Bearded Baywolf: Right. Well, it's like buying the designer pair of jeans that already have the holes in them that are more expensive than the designer pair of jeans that have no holes in them because they want to look cool. I mean, it makes not a whole lot of sense to me. But, yeah, why would you buy a pre-stickered cup when you can actually go through the experiences of being a part of those people's lives and buying those stickers and doing that? So it's turned into something like I get stickers and I'm like, oh, sweet, that's amazing.

Leighton Seys: Yeah, what was really cool. And so I'm not going to name any names, but if they are listening to this podcast, they'll know who they were. Monday night last week when I was at the Exponential Conference, we were there with the Church Digital to set up with innovative thinkers who were doing innovative things. So we were at their showcase, and I'm alone at the table because... My buddy who was supposed to be here got plane canceled, so he's not there. Other people who were going to drive, not able to make it, health reasons. So I'm there alone. And, well, I had my stickers for my podcast there. So I'm not really there to promote my podcast. I'm there to talk about the Church Digital and all the things that we're doing. And I heard this gal say she was walking with a group of about six, eight friends. as they were walking away they came through the door i was right by the door they walked past they didn't stop i'm really looking for a podcast but i didn't hear any more details like oh podcast so they they went around they went through the room they did other things eventually they came back over to my booth and my stickers sitting there for my podcast just next to it like it's not the display it's just available and she immediately eyes the sticker she asks if she can have the sticker she asks about the podcast and then said yeah i've been looking for christian podcasts to listen to and i said okay i haven't done this for a bunch of people i pull out my phone with my qr code and i say hey join my discord server i've got a whole section that's christian podcast that i listen to so you can go find other christian podcasts to to listen to so If you're listening and you have my sticker, you're one of the very, very few people that have my sticker. So thank you for stopping by the booth and following up by listening to this podcast. So I was really excited. I'm really excited to give stuff out when people are excited about it.

Bearded Baywolf: Oh, absolutely. And it's like. When you have something that people genuinely want, I think it brings something more to it than if you try to force upon an idea of something. And merch is something that I've just recently kind of stepped into, but it's kind of like, what do I create something that somebody would actually want? Because I want feedback from the community, right? Well, obviously we found some stuff that they like because some of the stuff has been purchased and it's all going towards church camp, which is absolutely amazing. But it's kind of one of those things that's like when you connect with the people and you have something that they truly want, there's that instant gratification. It's the joy of giving for me. It's like I think there's something true with that. There's joy in giving. And when you come from a place of what God wants us to do, he loves a cheerful giver. you're going to be blessed and they're going to be blessed as well and gives them an opportunity to get their foot in the door. I don't know how many times that somebody has popped into my stream saying, Hey, I followed you because you had that Christian tag. I don't know much about that, but I've been looking for more of that in my life. And I'm like, you came to the right place, my friend. And this is an opportunity for you to get to know. And I said, you're going to meet a lot of other fantastic, phenomenal Christian streamers in this community. They're going to love you just the same as me. And we always try to rate to somebody that's Christian as well, whether they're playing a game or building... doing artwork or whatever it might be. And so it's just an opportunity. They, they see that badge, they, they see that, that tag, they, they see something, it instantly connects them and they, they get interested in, in something that, you know, they might desperately are looking for like she was in the podcast.

Leighton Seys: Oh yeah. And what's, what's funny too, is like, I only began to get into podcasts like four years ago. And so, you know, I always start with this. Like, if you want to get a Christian podcast, start with Bema Discipleship. That is my number one podcast, still the number one. It helps you to be able to see the mindset of the Old Testament as you're going through. And you need to start with episode zero. Okay, so you need to listen to seasons one through three in order, do not skip. Like some podcasts you pick up right where you are, you need the foundation of what they're talking about there. So that's my number one recommendation. You can go on from there, depending upon what you're interested, what you're looking for. I'll recommend other things, but that's my number one.

Bearded Baywolf: What was that one called again?

Leighton Seys: BEMA Discipleship. B-E-M-A, so like the BEMA seat. Yeah, if you go to, yeah, spell. Hey, pre-pony, welcome in. Yeah, so that's my number one. It's like it helps you to see the viewpoint of the Old Testament from Jewish eyes as the original audience would have seen and understood it. And it goes through the entire Old Testament that way. So that's what you want to do is be able to get that foundation in the Old Testament because I feel that's where we struggle the most. A lot of pastors stick around in the New Testament and we preach the gospels or we go to Paul. We're one or the other. We're usually bifurcated. We're either I'm a gospel preacher or I'm a Paul preacher. We're kind of those things. And I've always been a... And maybe this is just the love that I fell in love with the Hebrew Bible when I went through seminary and Hebrew was just much more fun than Greek was. Greek was a chore. It was not fun. But Hebrew just, there was a beauty to it. There is a symmetry in it. There is this, like if you take all the vowels out, that's how it was originally without the vowels. So the vowels, the breath marks is what they really are. They're not vowels. It's how do you pronounce the word? Do you say potato or do you say potato? That's what it is. So the potato, and not that this is a real word, but the potato would be one direction of something. The potato would be another direction. And so you can play wordplay with the three letters that are the root of something. And my mind just like, oh, my goodness, this is such beauty that's underneath the text. And then I started going into the name meanings of people in the Bible, which is one of my favorite things to do. And I haven't been doing as much this year of it because I'm trying to do succinct publish to YouTube videos. And if I get off on a tangent of spending a half an hour looking up words, it's not great video for, for watching later, but it's fun to see me get excited about all the, all the name meanings like. And I'm not going to tell you where it is. You'll have to go find it. There's a dude whose name is Dung Heap. And so we're looking up genealogy, and all of a sudden there's a guy whose name is Dung Heap. okay why did you name him dung heap what is the significance of his name being dung heap i mean and then and then can you imagine his mom screaming out down the road have you seen dung heap dung heap is missing i can't find dung heap i mean like just like a good jewish mom is gonna yell out the window dung he where are you like there's some amazing names that are ridiculous and fun and you're like what were these parents thinking and then you have to remember some people's names aren't their given names they are a name that tells you about their character now what do we think about dung heap okay dung heap we know who dung heap was dung heap is the guy i can't rely on dung heap is the guy that calls in sick to work when you're on vacation so your boss calls you that's dung heap so we all know dung heap i know dung heap now now let's go read the story so that's that's what i love to do Oh, yeah, and Lucis is pointing out Naomi's sons. And sorry, spoiler alert here. If you've never read the Book of Ruth, spoiler alert here. Naomi, who means pleasant, her boys' names are Sickly and Frail. And spoiler alert, Sickly and Frail die. They don't make it. And Frail didn't make it. So, yeah, I won't give more, but that's the beauty that I love of the Old Testament in the words. It's so much fun.

Bearded Baywolf: Well, our church is really, really intentional about we do anchor series two times a year and we do smaller series. Anchor series is one book in the New Testament and the next anchor series is a book in the Old Testament. And then the other series are, you know, we usually start every single year out in Proverbs because it's a great place to build a foundation for your year. And so, yeah, absolutely. It's important to recognize that. The books of the Bible all work hand in hand. You can't have one without the other. And one of the things that our high school youth minister's father, who used to be a youth minister as well, he does what's called the five chapters a day, which is part of a balanced diet. And it's something that I've started with the youth group, and it's two chapters of the Old Testament, a psalm or proverbs, a book from the New Testament or from the Gospels, and then a letter. And so you're reading five chapters a day. seven days a week it adds up rather rather fast it's a great way i know a lot of people love the whole idea of you know reading the bible in a year and there's nothing wrong with that but i think life has a way of getting away from you and suddenly you've missed two or three days so suddenly you start playing catch up trying to read six or seven chapters and There's also another mentality of, you know, I've got a friend of mine or a friend of mine, a cousin of mine whose husband's a minister. And she's like, I'm going to spend one month in James. I'm going to listen to James every single day for a month. And I'm going to spend two weeks in the ESV version. I'm going to spend two weeks or a week in the NIV, a week in the New American Standard Bible so I can kind of get the grasp of what each different version is doing. And she's like, after a month of even though I've listened to it every single day for 31 days. There's so many things that I get. The Bible is a living, breathing testimony, and it's still alive today. And then I say that there's something in there that I don't care what your situation is in life, you're going to find an answer in the Bible. I don't care how futuristic you think the situation is, when you get to the base root of it, you're going to find the answer in the Bible. That's why we're able to relate to it, even though it was written to a Jewish group of people. Jesus came and said it's for everybody. And that's why I think a lot of times people stick to the New Testament because they're like, oh, the Old Testament is just for the Jews. And I'm like, no, that there's so much faith and so many amazing stories and so many things. My favorite thing is Elijah, who just literally got done defeating Baal, who then wanted to end it all. And God says, no, take a nap and have a snack. You're just tired and hungry. And it's like, I love that. God says, you're being cranky. Go lay down, and I'm going to give you some food, and you're going to be just fine. You just got done defeating Bale. Yeah. And he was like, I'm...

Leighton Seys: Yeah, I agree with the God doing that and the nature of it, but I tend to see him as having a mental health crisis that he's facing. Just go read the language that he's saying. I think he's a little more than cranky, but also I'm reading the text. I'm trying to decide it. I didn't see that to begin with. I've been looking at it for years, and then as I've gone through mental health crisis, I went, boy, I feel a whole lot like Elijah. i feel like crawling up under a tree and wishing i was dead i feel like i've been doing ministry and it's all been worthless but in in either way god affirms to him he's not alone and that his perspective is not correct so it doesn't matter what it is we can we can see differences in there um and and find beauty that god has for us pre-pony was saying that her church uses the lectionary and even so i know churches that use the lectionary and then the pastor will will read the new testament passage from the lectionary and preach on that even when there's they'll read the old testament but they won't preach from it in some places people just want the gospel only and You need to have both. In fact, so I've got a couple of planned preaching. So I'll be preaching Sunday, and I'll be preaching on Palm Sunday, and I'm going to be bringing Sukkoth in, which is the Festival of Booths, which is where the palm branches come from. I'm going to bring all of that in and talk about that. And then I've got a couple that they wanted me to do the lectionary because that's what they preach from. And so one of the passages is the walk to Emmaus. And so I'm going to be preaching on that and focusing on that after Easter takes place. And so there is such value in having all of those and bouncing back and forth, because what I want to do is bring out the passage of Leviticus, and those who are in my stream know I was going to go to Leviticus. I'm going to bring Leviticus into Palm Sunday. How many sermons have you heard on Leviticus on Palm Sunday? like you don't but that's the basis of what's who caught this and that's the festival of booths if you don't know that or tabernacles where you live in booths and remember that god delivered you out of egypt and so there's deliverance of out of egypt there's the living in booths when they return from nehemiah so i'll bring that in and then there's what people are hoping for that jesus is bringing is that we're going to be delivered so you bring all of those things together so there you go you have a preview of my whole sermon for sunday of but I love the weaving of those pieces together, which is why I do the way that I read the Bible, which is each day of the week is a different genre of scripture. But to your point, when people get behind, I just tell them, and we did this, like we read the Bible in a year on my stream. If we get through it in a year, we get through it in a year. Two years ago, we started Revelation on January 1st. We didn't get through it in a year. We did it in 13 months. Oh, no. Oh, no, it was 13 months. We didn't quit because we got behind. We continued, and we still got through it in 13 months instead of 12. We still went through it. Yeah, exactly.

Bearded Baywolf: Once again, it comes back to the whole time, that how we prioritize our time and do the things. And we're able to be very intentional with the time we have here because that's what we're doing. But it's the time before, the time after. And even, you know, Wednesday night church, it's getting through the day, getting all the things you need to, then getting to church and then coming home, knowing that you got all that stuff. And I don't know how many times I... I've been slowly getting rid of all of my social medias. I still need to utilize them for this platform. But you know, one that I tried to get on and which was TikTok, you know, I've got a couple hundred followers on there or something like that. I don't even know. It was a time suck. It was just wasting all of my time. So I was like, forget this. I'm going to just delete this. And it freed up so much more time because my phone, I'm sure like most everybody else's phone tells you exactly what you've done over the whole week. and how much time he spent on each platform or whatever. And I'm like, it was eye-opening for me. I was like, man, that was time I could have spent in the Word. That's time I could have been spent serving somebody else or just doing the things that I should be doing instead of the things that I want to do. And see, God gives us the things we need, not the things that we want. And when we forget that and our ideals line up with the things that God's going to give us that we need, we live a more blessed life because suddenly the things that we need fulfill us instead of the things that we want. And there's things in our lives that I guarantee I could cut out of my life and would not affect me at all.

Announcer/Intro Voice: Right.

Bearded Baywolf: But there's other things that I need in my life that if I cut those out, it would be the death of me. And it's just knowing where I utilize my time. And I think a lot of times we, we get away from the, I'm just too busy to, to dive into the work, you know, the, the, you know, the, uh, the Bible app. gives you the daily Bible verse of the day, even if it means simply reading the daily Bible verse just to get you going on that habit. There's things out there that are set up to allow you to get the word, you know, listening to it audibly. I mean, some people don't like to read. Listen to it. You know, I tried, and I've tried to read the Bible on my stream. It doesn't always happen because we get away from things, but... I'm trying to be intentional with getting that because sometimes people don't necessarily get to hear the word any other way. And so if I even can read a chapter a day, at least they got something. And so that's what I love about your, your morning stream is I know that I can pop on in the first thing in the morning and I don't want to be fed with the things that I need to start my day off. Whatever you open up first is probably what's going to feed you. If you open up your device and go straight to Facebook, man, you're going to probably live in a world of anxiety. But if you open up your life with a prayer to God, suddenly the standard is set that no matter what you're dealing with, you're not going through it alone.

Leighton Seys: That's such a good thing of what you feed yourself with first is going to set the course for your day. And frankly, ukulele for worship is usually the first thing I go to in the morning. If there was someone else on, I might go there, but she's the one who's on. So that's where I go. And I just kind of sit back and get praise and enjoy that space of preparing myself before I jump on and stream. If I'm up early, then there are some... you know, Christian bands from Australia that are on earlier in the morning that I, that I will go to and listen to them. But there's just, I think that's, that's just so good to point out is what you go to first prepares you for the day. Now you, I, I simultaneously, I want to say, was it two, two years ago or three years ago? I got both on TikTok and on LinkedIn on January 1st. And I'd never been on either of those platforms. I'm like, oh, I'm going to go on here. TikTok was so much more intuitive to me to be able to figure out and to do things. I'm not going viral or anything. But... I basically post on TikTok whatever I'm posting elsewhere. So I'm there more to post my content to maybe somebody who needs to see it will see it. I'm not going to go big over there. I'm not the right person. I'm not doing the right content over there. But I'm watching some friends of mine who I know that are also Twitch streamers going over there and having really, really good success. They are bringing it. And so I love to support them. So... I only hit the thing that says friends and I scroll through friends. I never go down the rabbit trail of watching whatever else is on there. I just only, if you're a friend, you get a heart from me. If you're not a friend, I'm never going to see your stuff. That's how I treat that platform is it's for me to post what I post everywhere in case you're not on other platforms. And then for me to share a heart with my friends and say, keep up the good work. Keep being Christ in this place.

Bearded Baywolf: Yeah, social media is a wonderful tool, but it can also be a very dangerous weapon as well. Something that we've really noticed with our high school youth group and something I notice even in the community is cell phones were created to bring us closer to each other. In reality, it's created us to be further apart and more isolated. What we see in the social media platforms is I wish I was that or I wish I had this or all those things. And suddenly you're living a life that is very shallow and pedantic, so to speak. And suddenly you are very isolated, even though you're supposedly more connected. And a lot of the kids in our high school youth group realize. Man, I feel very alone that Satan has taught me and told me that my situation, nobody else needs to know that I'm going through it. And nobody else is going through that, that my situation is so unique. Let me tell you, Satan is crafty, but he uses the same thing over and over and over again. And I promise you, that's why, to go back to the testimony, your story has so much power because something that you've gone through, somebody else has gone through, guarantee you, no matter what. And you have the opportunity to connect your story and Jesus Christ to your story, to them, so that they know that they're not alone. And Satan has utilized social media and utilized Twitch and YouTube and long-form content and short-form content and all of that stuff. to tell us that we're not good enough. And I'm here to tell you that, you know, that's why I'm all about telling you that you have value and that you have worth and you don't need to listen to those things. And so, yeah, it's important to have that, but also know your limitations. If that's not something for you, I've got a gentleman in my life group who said if he could get rid of his cell phone today, he would. He got rid of social media five years ago and he said his life has never been better. And so it's one of those things that if that's something you struggle with, I mean, it means maybe one less follower, one less viewer on here. I'm okay with that. If that's helping you out, get closer to Jesus.

Leighton Seys: Absolutely. If I wasn't using it as a ministry tool, I wouldn't be on all the platforms I'm on, you know, and some I've been on for a long time, like Facebook that I have no plans to get rid of it, even though I don't utilize it much. And what's really strange is Facebook started out with your only can be friends with people that you know. That's what it was for is connecting your social network online digitally. And now my feed is filled with people that I don't know. Like, I don't want this. I want to know what my friends are doing. And you don't show me that anymore. So I don't go there. And what's really funny. So the one church I'm going to be preaching at next month, I started preaching there last fall. I just do pulpit supply. I ran into, so I used to be a teacher out of college. I was a teacher. My student assistant. She was in my room, in my classroom, my student assistant. I ran into her there. We had not seen each other in, I don't know, 20 plus years. Actually, probably 25 years. We hadn't seen each other in 25 years. We ran into each other and I tried to Facebook friend her and it says, you don't know her in real life. I'm like, I actually know this person in real life and you will not let me friend them. They can reject it. You won't even let me send the request to this person I actually know who I just posted a photo of on my site. And I also, you let me message her directly, but you won't let me put her on a friend. I'm like, are you kidding me? The person I actually know. You won't let me friend them, but I have constant requests from people who have no followers, have no friends, and they're trying to spam me into following them. Those will go through, but me, the person I actually know, yeah, way to go there on social networking. Sorry, I just went on a tirade. I didn't mean to.

Bearded Baywolf: I go on those all the time, and I have to eventually get off those soapboxes and move on to the next conversation topic.

Leighton Seys: Well, why don't we just look at what are you looking forward to this year? Anything new that you're planning on stream or in life that you're excited about? I know you already were talking a little bit about some stuff you want to reveal on Friday, so you don't have to spill any more details on that if you don't want to.

Bearded Baywolf: Uh, you know, so, so church camp is, is, is coming up and that's something that I'm super excited for. Got to go for the first time last year as an adult, I've been to church camp as a kid, but to be on the other side of it is, is totally different. And I mean, there's, God's doing something in the youth today. I mean, there really is something, something big that's happening and I'm not getting in the way. I'm just along for the ride and it's absolutely amazing to see, uh, the hearts change and all that stuff and so that's something i'm looking forward to really it's just continuing to grow closer to god really i don't have any like i'm not somebody who really does like new year's resolutions i just typically kind of kind of keep things simple word of the year type thing something that's really really easy for me to manage and go from there and you know what of the year for me this year is just to be still i think a lot of times we have a tendency or at least i have a tendency of wanting to just keep moving well i want to take advantage of the moments and and enjoy those because you know i want to know what that feels like because we're constantly just changing and so just continuing to slowly grow i mean i think every single year there's always the dream to exponentially grow the channel and if god wants that to happen then absolutely because it gives me a bigger platform gives me an opportunity for for bigger growth and all that stuff but there's also the downside to that which we've already talked about as well which is you're not able to be as intentional with every single person so just loving people being the light growing with the family um and and watching my boys grow up they're sophomores and you know it's it's one of those things we've entered a new You know, in the next phase of life with my wife and I, we've been married, we'll be married 18 years. The boys will be 17. So we basically got married and had kids the next year. So they've been with us for our entire marriage. And now that they're finally working, we're starting to have nights where it's just me and her. And I'm like, I married this amazing woman. I've got to remember what it's like to like her outside of the confines of the kids. It's a different, different, different mentality. So we're... getting reacquainted, so to speak, with the things that we enjoy, the TV shows, the books, the outings, all that stuff. And it's been so, so exciting to do that. So that's something else I'm looking forward to this year. What about you? Do you have any big plans for the remainder of this year?

Leighton Seys: Well, I've got several different things in the works. So I will be at Nerd Culture Ministry Summit next month out in Colorado Springs. The Church Digital have a booth out there, so we'll be talking with people. I was just last week in Orlando, and so Bubba from Love Thy Nerd was saying, hey, we want you on the podcast. So I got invited to, and I don't know when that's going to happen, but they want me on the podcast talking about stuff. So that's going to be fun. I also have a friend who is working for an organization where a guy just published, I don't know, his fifth, sixth book, whatever it is, who's a Christian author and speaker. And he said he wants me to do the podcast for him. So I've got to book that for next month. So these are things that I did not expect that just are falling in my lap. And then I'm working on... a plan to go to Africa in May for a mission trip, teaching and training pastors around the focus of unity, which I think unity is the most valuable thing. In John 17, 23, Jesus prays for unity, that we would all be one as he and the Father are one. and so that they will the world would know that we are as disciples because of our love for one another and so i'm going to get to to hopefully be able to do that i'm trying to fundraise to make sure i can pay my way to be able to go i'm doing a bunch of writing this year and that's exciting and i've got probably four or five other things that like There's been a glimpse that God might do something. And if it does, I am going to be busier than I have been in five years. But it's going to be helping to catalyze church planting for the kingdom and digital aspects of that. If God brings that to happen, I'm supposed to do it. And if it doesn't happen, I'm not supposed to do it. So I've got some things that God has given me a glimmer. that some things are in the works. And it's like, oh my goodness, if you use me in that way, I'll be so excited. Because it'll be like, in some ways, going back to when I was coaching, and it's about the investment in other people to see what they do. It's not about what I accomplish.

Bearded Baywolf: Right. NCMS is definitely on my radar to go eventually. You know, I live here in Missouri, so it's actually a lot closer to go to NCMS than it is to reach conference, which is another one that I would love to go to. Schedules just haven't lined up, and it might be a couple of years because with my boys is active in sports and stuff. My vacation is kind of. dialed into that and i know that those conferences will still be around lord willing in a couple of years and so definitely on the on the path to be able to go to ncms or even reach or even some of these other amazing conferences uh getting to get connected with you guys in person was is always is always a dream you know oh yeah and and they they all have their different flavors too which which i really love so i also

Leighton Seys: did go to HopeCon last year, which is more along the lines of going to a church camp retreat. HopeCon was more along those lines of a spiritual retreat for people in the community to attend. Nerd Culture Ministry Summit is broader in scope that it's not just video games. It's anything nerdy. It's games. It's Star Trek. It's Star Wars. It's whatever you nerd out about. How do you use that for the kingdom, and how do you get people in your community? doing board game nights and those things so you can bless the community. And, you know, Reach Conference is really about the streamer community and how do we rally towards one another. So I love that they're different and there's different flavors of that. And I feel, boy, we were just talking about this on my stream this morning, about gratitude and being blessed of... Like there's some costs for me to go, but God has blessed me and continues to bless me with free tickets to go to these conferences. And so I keep getting to be able to be a participant because it's helping me grow and learn and network, which is what God has me doing right now. And so that's just fun and amazing too. Like, just be along for the ride. Sure, I'd love to have a steady income, and I'd love to be able to know that my bills are all paid for next month. But if I had that, I'd probably be sacrificing all of the networking and all of visiting these. Because if I'm full-time in a church, I can't go to five conferences a year and then take vacation that I need to for my family. Who's going to let me do that? So I know that there's a reality within that, but this is just the season I'm in. I'm like... I tell my wife this, and I say this on the street, I have never been as excited about ministry since I was in seminary. What I see God up to, what I see on the horizon, what I see the swelling and the preparing, I don't even know what it's going to be. But there's so much evidence that God is at work, it's going to explode in the next five years, and I feel like I have a front row seat to watch it.

Bearded Baywolf: Well, absolutely. I think... The view of success is from a monetary standpoint, right? I think a lot of times we view success from a, I've made this and I live in this and that. But like you said, if that was the case, I wouldn't be able to go to these conferences. And God blesses you and provides in ways. And it's not always they're going to be the richest. but you're rich in different manners. And I think if people were to recognize that, that each day is made up of millions of little miracles, a roof over your head, clothes on your back, food in your belly, electricity, all these things that you're not even guaranteed, but because of where you live or the history of your family or whatever allows you to have those things, those are miracles. And when people get to that thought process of, you know, I'm... warranted this or that. No, no, no. God's given you another day. He's put air in your lungs and a heart that beats and allows you to... be a living breathing testimony for him and so yeah it's sometimes you know the older i get the more i realize that bills are always going to be there bills are always going to be there but those family experiences those moments to get to connect somebody else to jesus christ those don't always come around and time is the thing that we always face that we're always chasing and so The older I get, the more I realize that that family outing is more important than I can eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for the next week. It'll get boring. It'll get old. But I got to have that experience. I got to go do this. I got to share the gospel with these people. I got to go to this conference. I got to go to that. And so it's not always about the money. It's not always about that, but it's about the people. And so that's something that as you get older, I think you... When you're young, you don't really, you take that all for granted because, oh, I'm young. I still got a whole life ahead of me. But, you know, the older you get, the closer you are to the end of your life. And it's really starting to hit me with a father that's 70 years old who just actually surpassed his father who passed away when he was 69. He was like, if I can make it to 70, then it's a win. And so anything after this is absolute gravy. I don't want him to pass away for another 15, 20, 30 years. It'd be awesome if that happens, but who knows?

Leighton Seys: Well, and that's always the thing you don't know with relatives, with family members, you know, how long are they going to be around? My father-in-law, I love, love the guy, but his father passed away at 40. So he's felt like he has outlived his body years ago. And then after 40, wasn't necessarily taking care of himself the best. you know things happen too that contribute but you know when you don't take care of yourself and then you continue to have problems you're like sometimes the attitude is well i've already lived past what i my expectation was but he just had back surgery last year and he's getting a lot around a lot more so my stream knows that and been praying for that and that's been wonderful to be able to go and spend time with him and i do get to spend time my wife and i I don't know, probably once a month we go down there at least and have dinner with them. And sometimes it'll be a couple of times a month as the weather permits. And we go on vacations with them, which is a fun thing to do. Well, as we're going to wrap up here, are you going to be hanging out and still streaming or are you going to be raiding out?

Bearded Baywolf: I think we might actually go ahead and just raid out as well. I'm going to be live Friday night and maybe probably on Saturday evening as well for a rare Saturday stream.

Leighton Seys: Okay. Sometimes people stick around. Some are like, I'm exhausted after such a good conversation. I need to just relax. So if you want to take a look and suggest a person we can raid out to, we get to do a double raid then, which to me is super exciting. They get raided.

Bearded Baywolf: oh absolutely by two different streams that were streaming together this whole community gets to go over and be in one place then you know uh you know samson vt i do but i don't i don't have the i haven't followed on my channel but not the church digital he is he's uh streaming right now and uh i i've rated him a couple of times

Leighton Seys: Well, no, I just added in. I'm just saying he's not showing up on mine. So we can absolutely go there. How does he spell that?

Bearded Baywolf: S-A-L-S-O-N-V-E-T. Oh, that's right.

Leighton Seys: It's Salmon.

Bearded Baywolf: Let me see if I got a couple of raid messages as well. Let me pull those up. I tell you what, this has been a fantastic conversation. I've looked forward to this for a long time.

Leighton Seys: yeah it's been really good i will say just for so this will be live on youtube it'll be live or i shouldn't say live it will be posted on youtube it will be posted on spotify and apple in about a month that's about my turnaround time so i put these in the hopper i work on them and and i release them about a month later so today What was released was Fedorable Will. Tomorrow, special edition is going to be released of Stacey Knapp talking about TCD care groups. So that's a special one that got recorded on Blessing Boat and going to be released tomorrow. So that one's only about a week old. And then because initially all of them just went on YouTube, they weren't on Spotify and on Apple until January. Season one, I'm going backwards, releasing those. And I think it might be pre-pony that's released on Thursday. I'd have to go look it up. I don't remember. But there'll be a, so like this week it was like, there'll be three episodes dropping. So one today, one tomorrow and one on Thursday. But then I all of a sudden have hit a, I don't have any scheduled. I don't have one next week. The week after, I was trying to work on those, and nothing scheduled. So I don't know what's next after this. That's why I'm plugging the VODs. But I'll be back on this channel next Monday to play video games, and hopefully by then I will have something lined up to share with you about the next podcast.

Bearded Baywolf: Absolutely, and I'm sure that if I think of anybody, I'll send them your way for sure.

Leighton Seys: Oh, absolutely. If, and I've got, like I said, sometimes it's a matter of, you know, like us talking now, talking again in a couple of months and then lining something up eventually. And sometimes it just comes together really, really quick. So I never know what that's going to be.

Bearded Baywolf: Well, this has been so much fun. This has been absolutely a blast.

Leighton Seys: glad that we were able to get this and i tell you what it's uh i can't believe that we've actually chatted as long as we did but i i mean we we well the longest one is assassinator steph and g funk that was a five-hour podcast i don't i don't plan to repeat that oh my

Bearded Baywolf: Yeah, I can imagine that.

Leighton Seys: But the three hours, it's like we seem to either wrap up around two hours or we go a full three. It's like we either are at the end of conversation or we've just got another hour left to go in us. And so it's been fun. I love this. Any last words? And then we'll both hit rate out at the same time.

Bearded Baywolf: I mean, I can't think of anything, but thank you so much to chat for bearing with us and being such an amazing part of this for that amazing raid. I'm sure I have had a couple of follows as well, so you guys are legends. I will connect with you guys on Friday. I will be live Friday night, 6 or 7 o'clock in the evening. If you can keep my wife in your thoughts and prayers, she has to get shots in her eyes on Friday. But our eyesight is doing a lot better. Long story. But we'll be live Friday. And then I think I'm going to do a surprise stream on Saturday night. But thank you so much for this opportunity. Thanks so much for the great conversations. And I will get you one of those badges in the mail, my friend.

Leighton Seys: All right. That's awesome. Appreciate everybody being here. Thank you. Thank you very much. And let's go over and let's bless other people wherever we go today.

Bearded Baywolf: Absolutely.

Leighton Seys: All right. I'm going to start the raid in three, two, one, and we'll be as close as we can to that, whatever it might be.

Bearded Baywolf: All righty. You just let me know when you're going to hit that raid now button, and I'll hit mine.

Leighton Seys: All right. I'm going to go ahead and give my credits here. So I've got us our beauty.