From Sudoku Speedruns to Systematic Theology: The Fedorable Will Story

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: Welcome in, welcome in, everyone, to Control-Alt-Redeem. We are resetting the culture and redeeming the space. And today I get the privilege of having Fedorable Will on the podcast with me. I was on your podcast, and now you're going to be on mine. And we could probably just have a conversation that would be amazing, even if we weren't on camera, and we have had some of those. And so I'm just super excited, looking forward to it tonight.

Fedorable Will: oh same here my dude it was very awesome to be able to like i mean we hit it off like right away when we met up at reach and then being able to like then continue those conversations even on um on my little uh talk show as we as we went through uh metaphysics of all things um now i'm looking forward to what we got today

Leighton Seys: yeah it's gonna be fun uh let's see who we got here we got katie bug who is in the chat and uh lexi lexi hooney welcome in and we'll probably have more people dropping by as we go let's see you've got under swap Papyrus? What? Am I saying that right? Yeah, it looks like a first-time chatter there as well. Welcome, man. How's everyone on the channel? Oh, cool. So you had a first-time chatter, as do we. That's super cool. I love that. I love that when we get brand new people. And Mako Samurai, welcome in, friend. All right. So you've got a podcast. You do a lot of stuff. We really connected when we were at Reach, and I'm sure at some point we'll talk about Reach. But I like to, no matter who's on, start with... How did you come in contact with Twitch? What was it that brought you to Twitch as an engagement to begin with? And then if it wasn't that when you got there, you were immediately streaming, when did you decide to start streaming? And along that way, did you start out as a Christian streamer? Do you consider yourself a streamer who's Christian, a Christian streamer? And just kind of like that aspect of the story. So I'll just leave it open-ended and we'll go wherever it goes.

Fedorable Will: Wow. Oh, yeah, that's a lot. All right. Well, we'll start from the beginning. We'll start from the beginning. The first thing you asked was about how on earth did I discover Twitch? That is quite an interesting question. So, I mean, I'm sure plenty of the people that you've had on the podcast have mentioned COVID. I am one such that's going to mention COVID. So basically my work. So I'm a software developer. and um and and so we started to do work from home and my office has a ping pong table that we use that that we do yeah yeah so we have a ping pong table and that's the and and part and part of the purpose of that is also because we do paired programming at my at uh at my work as well paired programming is where you you and the other person are both on the same computer, doing the tasks together, taking turns as to who's driving.

Announcer/Intro Voice: Oh, wow.

Fedorable Will: So that way there's always a bit of cross-training, and that way the knowledge about how something works doesn't leave when one person leaves the company. So, yeah. Basically during COVID, I got paid to socialize. It was really good. As an extrovert, that was really good. And then on top of that, so the ping pong table thing. How are we going to do that during COVID? answer was we couldn't so we so so we ended up doing these like uh puzzle games together like one such was sudoku me and my pair we we like got got a flow going where we where we would like take turns and just like knock out am entire sudoku like under two minutes And so from there, I started to wonder, huh, I wonder if there are speed running categories out there for Sudoku. And so I got into speed running and I got the world record in Microsoft Sudoku.

Leighton Seys: Really?

Fedorable Will: Wow.

Leighton Seys: Yeah. I know there's different level of Sudoku. Was it a high level Sudoku or?

Fedorable Will: Well, yeah, so the way that the Microsoft Sudoku speed run worked is you have to do each difficulty in succession. Just do them all. Timer ends when you do the last one.

Leighton Seys: Okay, okay. So I did not know how it worked because, you know, you buy a book and it's got all the different levels and... You kind of work your way through it. So I've never done the speed running of it. That's an interesting thing to think through that as can you do it. Now, do you just like brute force it by just putting the same number in a spot until it says, yes, that's the right spot?

Fedorable Will: some some sometimes but though like um so with with speed running you are always looking for the like the uh it's a it's a different skill set uh than than how you would normally play whatever game you're doing because you're looking for different cues than normal and uh so we would have the like baby mode stuff on with with like you know where it has where it has the notes filled out of what what could possibly go in that in that in that square for you um and and so like i would i would like i have to quickly scan the screen to be like okay there's only one possibility there and then just keep doing that um and and like poking it all out but then when you get to the harder difficulties you would have some times where it was just like a 50 50 and you just have to guess and see if you get lucky okay okay yeah you put them in and then you get to the end and it's like sorry you you messed up at the beginning okay okay yeah wow so yeah so

Leighton Seys: Go ahead. So that doesn't sound like Twitch, though. Or did you then from there figure out you could do that on Twitch? I've never looked for Sudoku on Twitch. Is there channels on here with Sudoku? No.

Fedorable Will: But that did. So from there, I then started to try to speed run other games. The next game I speed ran was Mario Golf Superstar, which is the one that came out on the Switch.

Announcer/Intro Voice: Yep.

Fedorable Will: um and so and and and and and that was inspired by like seeing some like uh some wii sports um like like uh speed runs online and being impressed by those but uh not having a wii at the time um so so so this was a sports game that i had so i was like oh yeah let's do this um and and and there's a lot of people in there that were doing some twitch streams so so that was one avenue of of inspiration we've seen the twitch streams there um and then and then um so i first got engaged with twitch through through the through the whole speed running thing but then also saw like i'd been watching some content creators like small ants and uh point crow uh who are some like gaming content creators that also stream and through that i found small ant mom who is uh act the actual mom of small ant and and um her streams were like super wholesome and uh family friendly and stuff and i was like

Leighton Seys: yo could could i make some family-friendly content like this for for for because like i just love i have so many friends yeah i just love those moments of questions of could i do that or could this be or could there be more people who are doing such a thing and there's like it's just like this epiphany that goes off on some level and And it happens in different ways. You run into someone doing it or you're reacting to people who aren't doing it. I mean, there's like it's so often like someone's on here and they're talking about this epiphany that just like, could that be? And the answer is yes.

Fedorable Will: Yes, it could be. Yeah. Yeah. Cause like, it, it felt like a problem worth solving. That's like my, my, my, a lot of my friends, um, you know, have kids and they are always complaining about how, you know, you can't like the internet, um, is filled with so many, like with, with content careers on YouTube, you don't have a family friendly tag. Um, so there's, so like you might watch like a video or two on, on the channel and then, and then you bring your kid into watching the third one you watch. No, there's a swear being dropped all of a sudden. it's like you feel so betrayed online uh but though it felt like twitch would be a good platform to be able to like make that family-friendly content and make something that my friends families would be able to enjoy

Leighton Seys: Well, and now that you have all the tags that you can do, I mean, people, as soon as tags were a thing, they were putting on there family friendly because people were looking for it. They wanted to have that. And then depending upon game rating, I really appreciate this. On one level, if I were a parent with young kids, I would want to know that it automatically puts that on because the game is being played. Now, as an adult, that doesn't give me enough information to know you're playing this game. do you have the sexual content and do you have the language turned on or off? Because sometimes you have the options of turning them off and on. Sometimes you have gore that you can turn off and on. So the game always gives you that, but it still doesn't always tell me enough when I go in a category. Is it something I want to watch or not watch still?

Fedorable Will: True, true. Yeah. yeah and um so so it was good to be able to deliver that content uh for for for my friends yeah and and um i hope i'm hoping that um it sir if serves people well on on youtube there likewise but um yeah that's that that's kind of how how we got how how the the streaming journey started uh but mario golf was not what got me to affiliate okay so you started with the streaming uh on twitch with mario golf

Leighton Seys: Yeah. I don't know if that's a big category or not. I've never gone to watch Mario Golf. Okay. I know FPS is a bigger category for a lot of things. There's more players when you do MMOs. You get multiple people who want to watch, people who play who also want to watch and get better and do all those things. Yeah. So golf is not the hidden gem that you're just going to eke it out to partner and nobody would know that you were the only expert in the room, right?

Fedorable Will: Yeah, no. And the other thing was that, like, you know, I was trying to engage with some of the other streamers of that game in the Discord that they had for it at the time. And no one seemed to notice or care about me. So, I don't know. It felt like I wasn't really appreciated or wanted in that community. So, I then moved on to speedrunning Super Smash Bros. um now i i do not have time on hand to do like hours long speed speed runs so all the speed runs that i've ever done throughout my career have always been like under half an hour speed runs okay um and so with smash bros um there there's um so there there's every speed run game out there you have multiple categories that you that you can do um if the game has a story mode then that's usually the like the one that people want to be on the top of right um yeah but though like smash bros while it does have a story mode um it's the um there there are some other categories there too for some of the side games that has um classic mode um is is is is a uh is a mode where like you have you like each character has this this route associated with it that's like maybe five minutes to do um and so there was a leaderboard category for each of those different characters because each one of them is is basically like a little mini story right for each one so um so so that so that was very fun be that i found that one more more fun to compete on because then like you know oh like this person has like oh like this like 12 of 12 speed run uh world records for like these characters and then like you know like It was fun to see the, like, back and forth. Oh, that makes sense.

Leighton Seys: Conquered. You know, because, like, I never got into Smash Bros. But with Mario Kart, like, you have certain characters you like to play. And so if I speed run with my character, I might be better than you with your character. So if I'm just competing against the same character, I might be really good at the ones I play all the time. You might be really good at the ones you play all the time. And so... I like that you're comparing apples to apples with skill set being the decider, not attributes of the characters being the decider.

Fedorable Will: yes yes because otherwise i would have to like go with the meta which for the other categories i believe the meta was either ganondorf or um oh gosh what was the other guy i think i think roy was the was what was was the was the other one at the time that was making a lot of waves in some of the other categories i i honestly all the fire emblem guys blend together it's one of the fire emblems

Leighton Seys: All I remember is early on when it first came out and my kids playing it, my one son loved playing Kirby because he could swallow people, and that's all I, you know. And then they had, you know, whatever FPS character that would come into it, and then other people would do that. But... I want turn-based games, so smashing buttons really fast and having to know the right move and the combination, that's not how my brain works. I can't do that efficiently. I probably would be better off if we're just talking music. well i need the full scale of a of a piano with all of the notes as opposed to having well if i move my hand up and down the core you know i get different chords and i play different strings like no that's too much complication for me yeah i know for sure yeah i mean

Fedorable Will: Yeah, I mean, knowing just a few characters and trying to like really get good at their routes was I found to be a lot more fun anyways. And it really did challenge me to like get good at with with with with the game as a whole as well. And just, you know, I started to like learn. a lot more of the ins and outs um of of how like the ai and stuff works in the game and uh just uh try trying to figure out how i can how i can use this i i found it to be very fun very fun now um and that is how i ended up getting uh discovered by a so so so the smash bros speedrun community did have their own discord and they actually started to come to my streams and support me and so some of my first earliest supporters were some people from that community um and uh the but but um so they kind of started to help me get to affiliate but what really then um helped me because i was streaming smash bros there was a um there there there there was this um kind of group of streamers they called themselves the rogue league they they're no longer around anymore like the owner had to like you know go and pursue other things irl and so it's kind of dissolved after that um but uh the rogue league um just just had like a bunch of like different streamers of a couple different categories smash bros was one of them but though a bunch of like competitive stuff in general um and that's how i ended up meeting um a lot of uh of so the those that have seen my uh weekly uh tabletop rpg super smash quest know uh palm tree uh who is one of my players and she was the one actually that discovered me um and brought me into the rogue league and is still one like i went to her wedding like super cool yeah so so like so so some of those connections that i made early on were some of the uh the the uh the deepest and long lasting um of of of of them and uh uh that that group ended up helping me get to affiliate and um yeah now now and and and and uh that that was my first year streaming

Leighton Seys: Wow. So so you went to affiliate playing Smash Bros. How long did you stay playing Smash Bros or when did you when did you and why did you because so you're just starting as a streamer who's a Christian. Maybe you're talking about it, but you're really like, hey, here's the quest and we're doing the quest and that's what we're doing. When did you make the decision that you're going to be a Christian streamer in the space and you shifted away from Smash Bros to do other things?

Fedorable Will: yeah um well for uh in in terms of like depending on how on how you define a christian so are you defining a christian streamer uh as like someone that is doing like theology talk specifically Well, I know you do that now.

Leighton Seys: So I'm assuming it wasn't just a flip the switch one day. But there are some who will come on here and don't want the title Christian streamer because they are a streamer who is Christian. So I would label going and playing Smash Bros. And if the subject comes up, the subject comes up. We might talk about it. We might do prayer. That would be a streamer who's Christian. But if I'm intentionally talking about my faith while playing Smash Bros, then I'm saying Christian Streamer. So I'm just parsing it on the intentionality of it. I'm bringing it or I'm allowing it. Or I don't have it at all.

Fedorable Will: think from very early i mean i always had the christian tag from as early as as as i can remember um because i think that yeah that that did exist at the time that i started yeah so um or at least it didn't take long before that that that might i i know there's been some people saying like oh i remember before the christian tag i don't remember before the christian tag

Leighton Seys: I do remember before the Christian tags, but, you know, I'm coming up on five-year affiliate. I'm celebrating that tomorrow. So I do remember because it was a year before that I started watching before I even was streaming, and then it took me six months or whatever to make affiliate because I started one day a week. So it wasn't like I was going to make affiliate anytime soon. So when I did, then I made the switch and did all of those things, which – funny like really funny like i made affiliate reading the bible that's how i like because that's how i started like i just started by reading the bible that's that's the thing i did so i think that's really funny to to go on a gaming platform and not make it you know as playing games and then switch it's i started with that oh i've got a raid coming in yo I need to get a raid command or a raid scene here or something. I'm watching you people. Coming in with a party of 11. Who do we have? I'm watching you people. Thank you. Luce is coming in. Pabstio here already, but also coming in with a raid. love you guys thanks for coming in anybody that's new here um you know uh you might know me you might not know me so i am flat cap dapper pastor and this is a podcast with fedorable will and we're talking about being a Christian on Twitch and streaming and having ministry be a part of what we are doing. Thank you for the hug. I'm watching you people. I hope you are doing well. I hope you had a blessed stream and I hope you have strength and energy. But if you need to go and fade in the background, there's a lurk in your vicinity. I'm sure you can tag that and enjoy a little bit of relaxation. So thank you for bringing your community here. She's one of my mods. She loves to hang out. Yeah, no hug command? I will double check. There should be. It must not be turned on for some reason. Every once in a while, they get turned off. And Fedor, but Will is in the house. And so you want to say anything quickly to welcome anybody coming in?

Fedorable Will: Yeah. Good to have all y'all in the chat. Good.

Leighton Seys: Yeah. Wait, are you asking me to plug myself? Yes, I'm asking you to plug yourself.

Fedorable Will: Okay, yes, yes. I'm Vadorable Will. I do Nintendo games, tabletop RPGs, and a little bit of theology on the Thursdays, and we have a fun, wholesome time doing it.

Leighton Seys: There we go. There we go. So welcome in, everybody. If you do have questions, you have comments in the chat, we will engage them at times. And other times we might get engrossed in our conversation and go in that direction. But you are welcome to ask us along the way. And my mod, Luce's, is as always pointing and laughing at me with the emotes. So I'm always making her laugh. So that's a good thing.

Fedorable Will: Oh, for sure.

Leighton Seys: So I know we were talking about to go back to the conversation. We were we were talking about you and when you decided to go from, OK, I made affiliate and I'm doing these games. You know, do I intentionally do like a theology thing? Do I intentionally bring a Bible reading into my, you know, do I do some things intentionally in the space that are sharing my faith?

Fedorable Will: yeah so from extremely early on i wanted to be able to do that i would always you know like anytime that's that's the uh that that's uh you know i could make that conversation leap naturally i did um so like it so i i always wanted to do that and then like so i but i but i and so in order to try to stir that up i uh tried to like make some like channel point redemption stuff like uh the bible nerd out one which uh i've had i've had in there for like the the longest time but though like um the um i'm i'm i recently i i started retiring it from from uh for from my stream just simply because like it's uh Now, now that I have a dedicated theology time on my stream, it just made made more sense to like to have it there rather than just interrupt everything in a more in an unnatural way.

Leighton Seys: Right. And I think that's one of the things, too, that I'll just say, and we've done some research around the topic of people online versus people in person willing to share their faith. People online are five times more likely to share their faith than people in person. And I think it's sometimes that unnatural transition that you don't know how to make. Like, hey, we're talking about the weather and sports. And then I want to go, and have you heard about Jesus? And it just is artificial in so many ways, as opposed to. building relationships with people and then talking about what's going on in life and being able to say well this just happened to me in the last two weeks lost the key to my car i didn't lose it but i previously have lost it uh we only had one i don't know if it was if my wife when my wife we're trying to recall when did my wife lose her key So she lost my key when we went on vacation because she parked it at our son's house, and he moved the car, and somewhere between there, and we get back from vacation, the key's gone. We don't have a key to the vehicle. So it's been one step after another after another over the last couple of weeks. I did get the car back yesterday. They dropped it off with two new sets of keys, $750. so just don't lose your keys so don't lesson learned here when they tell you the key is 300 pay the 300 to get a second key instead of waiting until you have no keys and you got to pay more so noted i just recently got a vehicle that only came with one key so Yes.

Fedorable Will: Noted.

Leighton Seys: Yeah. So I had an aftermarket one that I had keyed because I watched a video on YouTube that said you could do that. So I just went to the hardware store, had them key it, and you're supposed to be able to program it by putting the good key in and then putting the second one in, except my vehicle was assembled in Canada, so it's excluded from being able to do that. In this line of vehicle, only the ones assembled in the U.S. had that possibility. The Canadian ones didn't. so luckily i still had that key so they could take that one and make new keys however that key set the theft alarm off so they couldn't get out of theft mode and so this is why all this problem happened so it's it's funny what we try to avoid that later on in life you know comes back in a big way and causes more problems so yeah no for real for real yeah

Fedorable Will: And, no, but, yeah, I guess making the unnatural jump back to what we're talking about. And that's what my point was.

Leighton Seys: The unnatural thing, like, I could talk about life, and we just became natural to turn in that direction. Now it's unnatural to turn back.

Fedorable Will: Yeah, yeah, it somehow works. But, yeah, so, like, yeah, no, the Bible nerd outs were, like, super fun. Basically, I have this list of, like, very interesting little connections throughout the Bible that, you know, such as, like, you know, the flood, the fact that you have water coming from above and below made it a decreation. It was an unparting of the waters, things like that. so uh so the goal there was to try to like inspire awe over the bible itself um through that and like get get get people to ask questions about about christianity through that and then also the other thing that i would do at the end of every stream this was starting very early on as early as i can remember is truth time where i share a brief passage just like um i i have i have a slide um that like i i just fit it within there and i and i choose scriptures that can speak for themselves where i don't have to give a bunch of like context and like you know stuff like that and and and just and just uh re read that off at the end of stream and that i had so many non-christian people that said that they loved the truth times that's that's that's that

Leighton Seys: Did you just have truth in there, and you didn't put the Scripture reference, or did you also put the Scripture reference in there?

Fedorable Will: Because I'm just wondering, did they know? No, I put the Scripture reference in there. Yeah, so I was just reading the Scripture.

Leighton Seys: Right, right. But I know you were reading the Scripture, but I'm just wondering if they knew it was Scripture, or if they're just like, wow, that's just so cool, it's truth, and I believe it's truth, but they didn't know it was the Bible. But you did put the reference, so they did.

Fedorable Will: yeah yeah yeah yeah and and very early on as well i wanted some yeah some way to to communicate that as well that like this is god's word um and so uh so for for four years now at the beginning of all of those at the beginning of all those i always am like uh if you love someone you tell them the truth and boy how do i love you guys so here's the truth that can be found in passage passage such and such and there you go Very cool.

Leighton Seys: It's interesting. Both of us have a very similar approach on things. I want people to love the Bible. If you love reading the Bible, if you find it exciting, if you can find facts in there and points and curiosities... you're going to want to go consume it. What bothers me is sometimes when we go, oh, well, the genealogies are boring. They're only boring because you're reading them wrong. Go look up the names of people. Go look them. Oh, actually, I was going to post this earlier today. I just made a connection in my brain. So in Judges, when they're going to go conquer, or sorry, Joshua, when they're going to go conquer the land. I don't know if you know this. AI is the town that they can't defeat. AI means heap of rubble. I just all of a sudden made that connection in my brain today. We are now relying on a heap of rubble to do a lot of stuff in the world because I know it's not the same. You know, one is an abbreviation. The other is a name of a place. And actually, it should just be called I because the aleph is not a vowel. It's a consonant that's not pronounced. It's what you do in preparation in the back of your throat before you speak. But that's more than most people want to know.

Fedorable Will: Yeah, no. And so I played around with the idea of doing a like theology podcast or talk show or something like that from from from the early from my pretty early on, probably within the second year of streaming and. um i'd resisted the idea at the time and the reason was because like i didn't feel like i had anything special to deliver other than the fact that i liked reformed theology and maybe there's some people that won that specifically but like i i i i i didn't want it to be a pride thing where i'm just blabbing uh like my theology simply because i i like the sound of my own doctrine

Leighton Seys: Right, right. What's funny when you say that, being a trained pastor, it is so easy at times to judge other people when they don't come to the same conclusion you do. It took a while to get out of that. But on the other side of it, there are some radio programs. And as I listen to them, I would get turned off by the fact that someone would call in with a question that would be about Catholic or other faith. And they were so condescending towards the person asking the question, so dismissive around things as if like this is so foreign and you can't believe this. And I was like, you are answering a question saying you're the expert. Okay, so the person who's called in because, you know, they're trying to answer, like they were answering stuff that they didn't know about, but they were dismissing it and diminishing it. And it's like, I know what the questioner asked. I know the answer to what the questioner was, and you have no clue. And you're not willing to admit you don't know. You're just dismissing it and denigrating it with no knowledge of whatsoever. So it's one of those things I'm really cautious of when people ask me about the Koran. I don't know the Koran, okay? So I can't speak to what the Koran says. I haven't studied it. I don't know enough. Now, I know some about Muslim faith, and I can address my knowledge of it, but if you ask me a specific question about the Koran, I'm not going to pretend I know. And this person was being asked questions that were not Baptist in nature. They clearly were Baptist, so anything that had to do with Lent, they were just completely oblivious to what actually was happening, and they denigrated it, and I'm like, wow. I don't think I ever need to listen to you again. You're you think you're an expert and you don't and you're not even willing to learn what you don't know.

Announcer/Intro Voice: Hmm.

Fedorable Will: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Gosh, yeah, because that's that that's the thing is like being being able because as as I've gone through this journey of Twitch, I have, you know, been encountering a lot more variety of denominations, essentially. um as as as i've gone and uh i don't know just a lot of and then also the youtube algorithm has been recommending me all sorts of denomination based videos such as videos from redeemed zoomer who's literally like i i think one of the big one of the biggest names out there about like you know church denomination kind of um like Or at least church history type stuff.

Leighton Seys: Religion for breakfast also is one of those people. I think it's religion for breakfast. And who's the other one? Oh, I can't think of it. He is a professor who comes and tells you what a denomination believes, and he gives a really good straightforward, ready to harvest, ready to harvest. So if you want to know what a denomination believes, he has videos specifically on that denomination, and we'll talk about that denomination. And he's really good, too. Yes.

Fedorable Will: I've heard of that second one, but Religion for Breakfast, I've not heard of, so I'll have to look that up later.

Leighton Seys: Yeah, yeah, he's pretty good. He's been around for, oh, I think has to be like eight years at least. He's been on YouTube, so... He's one of those strange things that my son-in-law and I will sometimes talk about. He likes to study religion. He grew up in a Christian denomination, but he wouldn't classify himself as a Christian. And so we can have conversations, theological conversations, but he doesn't really have, I would say, and he doesn't himself say he has a Christian faith.

Fedorable Will: Interesting, yeah. yeah no yeah it's it's been really good though to learn about other denominations and and the more i learn about them i the more i respect their their beliefs and just feel closer to to all of my brothers and sisters in christ and i think that is super important a lot of people don't like um you know the fact that like oh there's all these different denominations are also divided and stuff but they'll know like we are going to have differing opinions on things that is natural for us to do so i don't think there's anything wrong with us having disagreements but we have to remember we are united we have things we can agree on the core of the gospel right um because like i so what what i believe is the essentials is literally just the apostles creed right so um because that's one of the earliest uh you know documents in church history where we have like okay here's what christianity is and so uh and for those for those that don't know it includes things like uh the trinity and uh the virgin birth and and you know and and the basics of the gospel that's that christ died for our sins notably it does not contain um oh what what was the term is escaping me but though it's it has to do with substitutionary atonement substitutionary atonement is not in is not explicitly stated in the apostles creed and after realizing that i started to think like okay maybe there are some catholics out there that are also that are that are also saved too so yeah well and and not all protestants believe in substitutionary atonement either

Leighton Seys: So, boy, it's been a while since I've studied all of the soteriology. But I want to say there are about 12 different categories and descriptors to describe the work of Christ on the cross. and one denomination will elevate one of those teachings and say this is the way that he did it and it's not that they denigrate the others they just elevate one aspect of it and you know if you look through church history at different times some of those developed because of what was happening in the world and the location where it developed over time So as new ways to describe the work of Christ come about, it's sometimes in response to the very nature of how people are receiving Christ in the time that they're living. And so if that's the case, and Christ is continuously revealing himself in new ways with new facets, why would we say that not all of them could be true simultaneously, even if we don't know how?

Fedorable Will: Exactly, exactly. yeah also i see a question in chat more or less about uh what uh not not knowing what substitutionary term it is and i and i think it is always important to define the terms especially because i i i always i always love to give to give to give vocab all the time because i think the vocab terms are extremely helpful to be able to categorize our own thoughts and our own beliefs and to be able to to have better confidence and and convictions about our own beliefs so uh substitutionary atonement is that jesus died on a cross as a substitute um to to uh you know in in place of sin so substitution atonement is basically that jesus is uh blood just immediately um cover covers all that's like our judish that someone that comes to faith just completely completely wiped out uh of of of that debt as opposed to some of the like so so the catholics would say that you know would believe in a purgatory where where like you know that not not because they don't believe in such substitutionary atonements that is just like an immediate like uh flip of a switch and and you and all your sins are now atoned for since they believe it's more of a progressive thing um and then that progressive thing then goes on into purgatory until until it's all wiped away and then you go into heaven That is why a lot of Protestants point the finger and be like, what, you don't believe in substitutionary atonement? That means you're not a Christian. Because that feels like such a fundamental thing to our faith. especially for Protestants.

Leighton Seys: Yeah, so there's more ways to talk about it, too. Another one is Christus Victor, because he was victory over death and Hades and the grave, and so he had victory over sin and death in what he did. But yeah, substitutionary atonement is that he paid the price, that's the atonement, he was the substitute for you. So that's where we get all of that from. And sometimes I try to shy away from those words because if you don't know those words, even to use the word sin, if the majority of the world isn't talking about things that are sin, then maybe I should just talk about, have you ever screwed up?

Fedorable Will: Oh, yeah, I screwed up.

Leighton Seys: I can use a different language, but you're right. I'm still going to define the term of I screwed up. Okay, what does that mean for you that you screwed up? Well, so we can still define the term, but I'm going to find a term that's on the grounds of the person I want to have the conversation with. I don't know if it's this experience or not that really caused me to do that. When I was in seminary, and it probably was before seminary, but one particular professor in seminary, when I was taking Greek, I would ask questions to try to clarify and understand, and he would look at me like I just asked, why is the sky plaid today? like he could not comprehend my question he taught phd level high german as well as greek and he's stooping down to teach introductory greek and he could not comprehend my questions they were so wrong to him he couldn't even understand it was a question so I never want anyone to feel that way when I talk to them. I never want them to feel like I'm going to go away and never ask a question again. By the way, this is funny. I don't think I've told anyone on my stream, so this is worth a clip if someone wants to do this. I don't know when he, you know, it was the first time or the second time. I probably asked questions about five, six times, and I gave up. He started calling me James. My name is not James, okay? I let him continuously call me James because I felt worthless in that class. And so James was the one who was worthless. I let James be my identity in his class. A year and a half later, after I'm out of his class, he's walking down the hallway and he says, hi, James, to me. I go, I'm not James. And I just kept walking. He goes, oh, he thought I was. I'm not. So he just like disassociated me from James in the class. It was amazing. But it's like this whole identity that he put on me for being an idiot and not even comprehending, which is true. It's foreign language. I'm not good. But. Anyway, we're way off on a sidetrack there, but this is what I love. Who knows where the conversation is going to go?

Fedorable Will: yeah yeah yeah no for sure for sure though this is actually what led me into uh starting starting my own theology series um last year on on my channel was i uh you know i i start i started to see that like okay all the all this all the stuff that is that is out there is very beginner friendly essentially um you know like it's it's it's um stuff like you do where where you are where you are reading the bible and explaining it um or or it could be like some excuse me someone reading through a devotional or things like that um and i and i wanted to to kind of like dig deeper and because i i love these vocab terms because i feel like people have forgotten how to be precise with their language um right yes well on the other other hand i i have people in my life

Leighton Seys: that can't stop being precise with language and they use their precision with language to beat up other people too so i've i've seen that go in the wrong direction where you use a word and they're saying no it can't mean that even though the common use of it is that it has evolved into so i'll just give an example that's that they didn't they have not heard them do but you can't say bad to mean good because the definition of bad is bad it's not good and i don't know what definition of bad is but you know like they'll make that kind of argument and so you like they'll just be persistent like let it go like why are you arguing for the sake of arguing you know but to go back we do need to know what words mean or we're not communicating So people are going to run into these words. I tend to not focus on them because they're extra biblical words that we have used to describe the Bible, which are beneficial. But you're right. I'm trying to get people to fall in love with and enjoy spending time in the Bible. Hopefully they will move on. And plus, I don't feel like I'm a scholar enough to tackle some of those terms without spending a lot more preparation time than I'm able to do. And without a source of income that lets me do that, I was like, no, I can't do that.

Fedorable Will: yeah yeah no but though um i mean yeah you're right there are some people that try to to like you know use it against people but i i i i i i avoid that as much as possible if there's like i i always i i i would say that i'm usually pretty good about catching myself about like using a like theological term and then like i i'll catch myself and like you know define that for them before we move on or even anything where I feel like people could disagree on, on the definition of thing. Honestly, the other day on my stream, we were arguing about the definition of a salad is, is, is a, is a sandwich, just an ordered salad, things like that.

Leighton Seys: That could be some fun stuff when you start doing that. But when you start defining, like, what is the definition of is, is, you know, then you get into other problems, you know? If anyone – I'm just throwing that out there just in case somebody is listening that knows that.

Fedorable Will: Yeah, because that's why Lutherans and Catholics believe that the bread is Jesus' flesh because they say is means is.

Leighton Seys: yes well jesus also says this is my body he doesn't say this is bread which represents my body so yeah do we believe jesus or do we not now i believe him but not the same way that catholics believe him so there you know there you go figure that one out yeah

Fedorable Will: yeah i i i lean towards the uh reform slash presbyterian view which is that uh there's spiritual presence there it's not purely symbolic um because jesus's body is up in heaven um but though like he but though spiritually he is present within the communion yeah we look we go off on a whole another side thing but it's how do we define what a body is is also part of the thing oh You are so right. But this is the stuff that I love to do.

Leighton Seys: So this exactly shows why, you know, and when the two like you and I can get into this and you like your persona is so good for this because. I don't feel judged by you, and I don't see you judging people in your chat for that. And you always get excited when there's this, ooh, okay, let's go back to that kind of a piece to it that I could just see why people are drawn to that. And... Yes, there's a lot of really deep experts out there, but the gap between myself and others who are just introductory, we're doing Bible, we're not adding all the theological terms, and the people that are deep diving with PhD-level stuff, there's a chasm between there, and you are just a step on that journey for a lot of people, man.

Fedorable Will: yes and that is exactly what i want to want to be so i am not the one with the phd my my pastor is my pastor has a phd and that's how i started learning some of these various terms is just by having these kind of conversations with him um and at the start like that's that's that's originally what i wanted to do was just like oh yeah what if we just record our conversations that that that that we have and put that as a podcast um but though that would have that would have gone against that rule that i set on myself of not just like recording because i like the way that my doctrine sounds right i don't i don't want yeah i don't i don't want it to to to be just simply because oh i i i think that my that the conversations we're having are cool are cool sounding and therefore i need to get it out there um and plus also at the time um because like i said the the the uh the groups that got me that got me to affiliate were not strictly christian groups so i had um it was it was mostly unchristian uh non-christian uh followers that i had at first um and that ended up changing over time just simply because like minds flock to like minds and so uh like you know um i i want to say like you know so year year three ended up being the transition year for that and then year and then and and um that was when i started to realize yeah i i have the viewers for uh that that that are kind of hungry for this that that once that that uh could actually benefit uh from hearing some of these deeper theology things and so that that is when i started to make that switch and and um jump into doing the theology talks yeah

Leighton Seys: i i love how just to hear this like we could just keep talking about okay so over all the intricate little steps along the way when did you do this and how did you decide that because i love the the experimentation and going in one direction yeah that one didn't work and then go over here you know that nothing's resonating and oh it's it's it's going to move in that direction and like i i i don't know like let me put a different way I love the questions the way you pose them because my brain thinks a certain way. And when you pose the question, you like use one word or the order of things cause like I'm ready to answer the question. And then the way you ask the question is not the way I was ready to answer it because you asked a different question. And I want to honor the question you actually asked. Instead of just saying, oh, I know the answer to that, you know. So let's dive in. And it's really fascinating. Like, even, you know, like, hey, here's the podcast that you're going to be on. We're going to talk about this. Oh, yeah, I know what all the answers are. And then you ask a question differently than I'm prepared for. And it's like, I actually am going to think about this and not just give a practiced answer. So I love that you can do that for someone who might be as versed as I am in these things. Your questions come from genuine curiosity around it and wanting to really move in a direction that you might not have fully a full fleshed out answer. So that's super cool, man.

Fedorable Will: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. No, exactly. Because I don't want people to like just hear some vocab words and then we move on. I want to dig into why that's that, you know, those things are the way that they are and dig to the root of to the root of it all. Because there's, you know. there's there's this concept known as the simplicity of God right that's um God though he is very infinite in everything um like his love is infinite his his um his his patience is infinite. All of these, everything that God is, he is infinite in. But also that's what makes God so simple because like there's, there's, there's the, like, you know, once, once you like, it's easy to get our mind around this infinite God by looking at those, at those categories just kind of individually. um and so uh and and and so that's what i want to do is just like is is these big topics that that are that are that that's our that might be hard to grasp at the end of the day they they they like join together uh like systematic theology is a term that people love to hate because there are some people out there that so systematic theology is where it's where you kind of systematize and start linking little Doctrine Nuggets together to make new Doctrine Nuggets the Trinity for example is not a term found in the Bible um it is a it is a very helpful term that because we you know yeah go ahead

Leighton Seys: Yooka-Laylee for worship coming in with the raid. Would have been nicer if Yooka-Laylee could have raided you. That would have been both would have had a raid. But I got another raid. Yooka-Laylee coming in. Lucis, can you get a shout out there for Yooka-Laylee? Miss Jellybean's in the house. Miss Jelly Beans, one of my OG mods. Love Miss Jelly Beans. She reached out when I said I was going to stream, and she said, can I mod for you? And I'm like, yes, please. Thank you. I would love to have that. So everybody, go and message her. Tell her she needs to be on my podcast so I can talk to her. I'm just kidding.

Fedorable Will: I just love her, and I want to have her on.

Leighton Seys: Frey Train, welcome in. Samus, welcome in. Ukulele, thank you for coming in. You could have chosen to raid Fedorable Will. I appreciate you coming and raiding the church digital. Nico, I'll get back to your question potentially in a second if it makes sense. So those of you who do not know, which if you're in Ukulele stream, hopefully most of you know, I am Flat Cap Dapper Pastor. This is Control-Alt-Redeem, and I bring on friends on the podcast and talk about being a Christian in Twitch space. And we have Fedorable Will on. Fedorable Will, say hello to everybody.

Fedorable Will: Yo, I'm Will, and I do Nintendo games and tabletop RPGs over here on my stream and a little bit of theology on the Thursdays as well. And we always have a fun, wholesome time doing it.

Leighton Seys: Yeah, awesome. Nico, your question, it depends on what group of Christians. So that's a larger thing. Christians consider God to be imminent or transcendental, and it's going to depend on what group of Christians you're talking to of where they're going to be on that scope of things.

Fedorable Will: and to define those imminent meaning that that god is involved in the world didn't just create the world and then hands off um and then trend transcendental meaning like he transcends he's above it all i would say i i i don't know of any denominations that actually i i could be wrong but i don't know of any denominations that would deny those because i think the majority of christians would would say i mean just reading through the bible i mean definitely em imminent he he is so involved in the world to where he sent his son to die on behalf of

Leighton Seys: the world yeah it's it's not the same as deist the way that they're viewing it as god has never been involved it's more of uh you know right now since all of the spiritual gifts have ceased there is not the active work of god so it's it's a viewpoint of how they're viewing god's involvement is so that's why i said i don't want to speak on behalf of all of them because as i listen to some people describe what they believe it would fall closer to one end of the spectrum or the other true interesting i did i didn't think about it from that angle yeah if if god threw through his spiritual gifts

Fedorable Will: are still still involved that's that i do know that there are some christians that that do not that do not believe that that um uh because there are yeah again there are all sorts of different camps out there i'm in a very moderate camp when it comes to that but yeah so i've got a redeem you got a redeem for a hat thank you for that redemption

Leighton Seys: You got to go spend time with the hubby ukulele. Thank you for bringing everybody here. I hope you had a blessed time with your stream. I hope you raised some good money. She raises money for, oh, what is it? Operation Christmas Child.

Fedorable Will: I do this every once in a while.

Leighton Seys: If you ever wonder why, like, my brain, I turn my head to think. Like, it's one of these things where my brain has things hidden, and I turn the right direction, and the words will come to me. It's a weird thing that I've done since I was a kid, so... But yeah, so thank you, Ukulele, for being here. Go have a wonderful time with your hubby. Yes. All right. Let's try to go back. So those who are coming in, we were in the middle of a conversation. We got sidetracked on some definitions of terms and things that were ongoing there. So I'm going to bring us back to, so you're streaming on Twitch. You're now doing a whole bunch of things. I love what you're doing with the theology thing there. You started out in one direction. You've evolved in another way. Your channel has changed. What have been some difficulties you have faced being a Christian streamer over that period of time? It could be something that happened in chat. It could be something that happened in your life. So it doesn't have to be only stream related because things in our life impact our stream. So what have been some difficulties that you've faced and had to overcome in your four years of being a streamer?

Fedorable Will: time management was a big one early on um because like you want to be as consistent as possible with the schedule like that is one in the one some of the number one advice you will hear from streamers and it's for a good reason you got to have a you got to be consistent you have to have you got to at least have a schedule um and and you know so people know when to come on um and and and for me so at when i started streaming i was doing full-time job as well as trying to finish my degree part-time um that is its own side tangent with uh my testimony uh my academic testimony there and how i failed college but then god somehow uh not somehow miraculously because it's god um got got me a full-time salary gig doing exactly what i wanted and then helped me to overcome um the uh the sin of uh of slothfulness um through through that and so uh so i ended up i ended up my my academic journey had gotten derailed i i but yet i got a full-time salary gig out of it doing exactly what i wanted and now i'm fin i was finishing my degree part-time and praise god that i was working for a company that had academic reimbursement so i finished my degree uh debt free as well but boy how did it take me eons to finish so it took me like eight years to finish not eight years no not eight years more like seven six or seven years um so yeah i know people who have taken over a decade to to finish a degree uh yeah

Announcer/Intro Voice: I ran as ghost.

Leighton Seys: I walked into it.

Fedorable Will: Yeah, you walked into it.

Leighton Seys: I am starting to enjoy the meme of 6-7 because I don't have little kids who say it all the time. So when it comes up, I find it hilarious. So thank you. Thank you for that.

Fedorable Will: Yes, I also just love that we finally have funny numbers that have nothing to do with immoral things. So great.

Leighton Seys: Well, we could parse it theologically for a minute here because six is the number of man. And so that's not a good thing. But seven is the number of totality and completeness. So you're moving from the flesh to being totally complete. So six to seven, that's a good transition.

Fedorable Will: Yeah, I like that. I like that. Coach, why would you think you'd get a timeout for that on my channel? Dude, I say things like totes lit fam. I am not going to time you out for 6-7.

Leighton Seys: I say, homie, don't play that. So I'm not timing anybody out.

UNKNOWN: Gosh.

Fedorable Will: But, no, yeah. So the – oh, where were we before the 6-7 shenanigans?

Leighton Seys: What were some obstacles? You were talking about time management.

Fedorable Will: yes time management so um so a lot of a lot of people know that i do know me for like my lunch hour streams that i still have to this day and that started because like at the time when i was first starting streaming that was when i could be most consistent was was during um lunch hours so It's only an hour long stream. And now here's the thing. If Romans ever, ever, ever hears me mention that I do one hour streams, he's going to like roll over and he's not in the grave, but he's going to roll over.

Leighton Seys: well okay there's there's best practices so there's two things competing against each other consistency and length of stream and they're competing against each other you don't have capacity to do both you've chosen consistency to do lunch hour which reliable and people can count on over what the algorithms say the longer you go to a certain point a four hour stream always better than a one hour stream

Fedorable Will: for viewers so yeah you're sacrificing one over the other when they're in conflict exactly exactly now that i am done with my degree and stuff and i have a bit more time and flexibility in theory yes i could i i could cut out those lunch hour streams all together but here's the thing so i would not recommend hour-long streams to anyone that is making a partner push or anything like that right um yeah yeah but but though um because it's it's very interesting what ended up happening um there because a lot of people would like come in just at the end of the stream and uh because that's that that's that that's why people say do stream longer than an hour because it usually takes that long for people to figure out that you're streaming and then be able to come in.

Leighton Seys: I think Twitch's algorithm doesn't push you that soon either. There's so many people going live. If you're on for 20 minutes, they don't want to push you. If something's happening, you have tech issues, they're not going to push people there, and then, oop, a bad experience, and you leave Twitch. If you've been on for an hour, you're starting to establish you're going to be effective and sticking around. You've been on for three hours. Okay, we know you're reliable. We're going to push people over there. I think their system is set up to do that too.

Fedorable Will: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But with that, because a lot of people were coming in at the end, they took it as a challenge on themselves to try to be like, oh, I keep coming in at the end. Oh, I keep coming in at the end and regretting that. And then that regret then led them to start coming on time. And now I have just this lunch hour fam. Nice. The people that know to be there right at noon Eastern on my channel. And it's become a nice little tight-knit community.

Leighton Seys: That's super cool. Yeah, like I said, it's one of those things, and this goes for anything digital, I think. You have to be where people are going to be when they know you're going to be there. So that can be asynchronous too. So if they know I leave a chat in your Discord, someone in your Discord channel will answer me. They're responsible people as opposed to I post it in there. You never check. A month goes by. I don't hear from you. That's not reliable. So it can still be asynchronous and be reliable like, oh, I know that. And I tell people that I always leave mine on. I'm not present because I never know when you're sending it. And you might be in the middle of the other side of the world in Singapore, and you're having a crisis in the middle of the day, and it's 4 a.m. for me, and I'm asleep, and you send me a message, and you're mad because by 8 a.m. I haven't replied. I'm asleep. So it doesn't work. So there's the I'm available when I get there. And also I tell you ahead of time I'm on vacation. That's when I don't check. Otherwise, like, no, I'm Monday through Friday. I'm checking two, three times a day for all of my messages that you might be sending me over the weekend. Not as often, but I will check every day at some point. And when I'm on vacation, no, I'm gone. I'm out. I do not do digital when I'm on vacation.

Fedorable Will: Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. So it's setting that expectation. Is this what you're getting at?

Leighton Seys: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, you set the expectations of when you are and your reliability and your availability. So going back to your streaming, if you're there for an hour, they know that's when you are. They then want to be present for the full part of it. So they start to adjust to be available when they know you are.

Fedorable Will: exactly exactly and that's and that's what i found happening and that was only because i was also serving contents that they were willing to do that for yeah um you know i and and also i uh you know it also helped to have other content than just the lunch hour stuff because like if if someone is it like if that's the only way that people know you is by like five minutes at the end of your stream all the time they're not going to have any reason to adjust their schedules over that so the fact that i used that i had other stuff for them to be able to learn about me helped as well

Leighton Seys: Yeah. So time management was an obstacle to overcome. Were there other things of doing that, like the consistency, the job, all of that stuff getting in the way? Were there any other things that you had to overcome as being a streamer?

Fedorable Will: um i mean just i i mean the job stuff not not so much um i mean i mean the really really the time management was what it was and now we've got we've got a good good handle on that and it's still something that i've that i that i had to adjust as as as new demands come up and things like that but um yeah but uh i would say another challenge that i had early on um was just like um i don't know getting getting to know some other some other streamers and then having their viewers be part of mine and then also with the time management there if i were to be live the same time as someone that i shared viewers with this is something i struggled with early on thinking that that like oh i am competing over those people with them that's streamers please don't ever think that please no stream when you want to stream just because someone else is streaming at at at that time that's that doesn't make it like suddenly like oh like i can't find my own viewers case in point uh ukulele for worship has a lot of overlap with with my channel and then a lot of those will come and watch me on the church digital but she was doing her operation christmas child once a month stream

Leighton Seys: At the time we were streaming it. Now she started earlier than us and there was the overlap, but it was like, this is what worked for the two of us to get together. I didn't say, sorry, that day doesn't work because I want to honor someone else's opportunity. Cause then nobody will show up. Yeah. It's there are what a million people that stream in a month. So if there's that many people, there's that many people who are looking for someone to watch. And if you go live at the same time as someone else that you like watching, there's plenty of people looking for somebody to watch.

Fedorable Will: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I remember because like at the time I was still watching some bigger streamers. like point crow and stuff and he was doing this like i forget it i i think he was like watching ice melt and just answering questions yeah and and and and so like i i submitted something for the q a that was like you know talking about this problem that i had and um he was he was very blunt um and and said like your your viewers are your viewers they're not they're not that person's viewers they're if they are on your channel they are your viewer um and and so you know like um it it it's it's you you can't say that like someone has ownership over over over over a certain viewer or anything like that um frankly if that is the problem to where like peop like you know these viewers are preferring this other streamer to to to you then that's fine. People have different preferences. There will be someone that will come along that will prefer your content over theirs because I would hope that there is something to distinguish you from that stream in the first place.

Leighton Seys: Sorry, just the way that part of this is being parsed, my brain is going, wait a minute, the Catholic Church has their service at 8 o'clock, and the Baptist has theirs at 11. We need to split the difference so that people will come to ours, and they'll go to more than one service. Nobody ever says that. They're going straight at the time they want. And they're going to compete with each other as a church for you to have to make a decision and not be able to go to two. Now, frankly, I've also had people talk about and. It's been in one of the podcasts, I don't remember who said this, where they were attending more than one church at a time because they might go Sunday morning for one thing, Bible study somewhere else, Wednesday night somewhere else, marriage group somewhere else, whatever it was. And the one church came to them and said, no, you have to choose us or alone or you can't be here. uh and it's like that's a horrible mentality like we're we're the body of christ so yeah i i love sharing my viewers with other people if if they're coming to you that's where they need to be for the day you know that's like if my vod is good word will get out and they'll come back and watch my vod later i have a weird number of people that watch my vods like i go look at the number that we're live and i go back later and it's like my vods are like wait i'm like who's watching the vods that's not a twitch thing why do they watch my vods i don't get it but uh If they could count my VOD views, I could be partner. Let me put it that way. Gosh. Yeah, you're absolutely right. Viewers are not your viewers. The viewers are only your viewers who are present here right now. So all of the viewers that are here, and we are doing a podcast. We are sharing our viewers together. I love the new feature that they came out with not too long ago. I can look on my stream, and I don't know if the numbers are accurate. I never believe them. But I can see how many it says I have and how many we have together. I really like that together number. That's a pretty cool number. You know, for this being a, you don't know when the stream's going to be on. It's going to be on when it's on so that I can accommodate guests and have them come in. Horrible way to build a community, but a lovely way to have guests be able to come on and share what's going on with them.

Fedorable Will: Oh, yeah. Yeah, for sure. For sure. And there are some series that I am flexible on. Chaos Table. So that is one of the series that I am most known for. For those that don't know, Chaos Table is a tabletop RPG where chat gets to control reality using their channel points. So it's like D&D, but Twitch plays the GM. so um yeah yeah it's it's uh well i i am i am still the game master but though like they they get to override me and in various ways um it's it's it's it's it's it's extremely fun and chaotic and and um And it's a great way to differentiate my tabletop RPG content as well.

Leighton Seys: Yeah, I haven't made it to the tabletop. Now I'm really thinking I need to. Now I'm really thinking I need to find when that's on and make time to hang out.

Fedorable Will: Yeah, that one I haven't.

Leighton Seys: I'm going to spend all of my points ruining what your plans are.

Fedorable Will: Yes, do it. But the the the like that there, I just do those once a month because I have to coordinate because I always changed who the gets the guests are each time. And so that there requires its own scheduling. And sometimes it takes a month to figure out someone's schedule.

Leighton Seys: Yeah, I know. I'm working on that. But I'm getting better at it on some level. As you do it, I'm sure you're getting better at it, too, of trying to do all the coordination. It's fascinating to be able to make those things and modify things and the blessing you get out of making a change for the sake of someone else.

Fedorable Will: yeah yeah and um and so and so like you know that that one uh so so so uh slight plug next up next one's going to be this saturday at 7 p.m eastern so there you go um but but though um you know those those ones end up being flexible but then i do also have like a weekly tabletop rpg podcast with the same people every week uh on tuesday evenings um it's a smash bros themed campaign that doesn't have the chat interaction but though i have like chosen um to use like fate core instead of dungeons and dragons because fate core for those that don't know is a rules light system that is more so focused on the like role playing and that's perfect for streams you want it you want it to be like as engaging as possible at every single moment you don't want dead air right because there's there's a lot of tabletop rpg streamers out there a lot of dnd streamers out there that are just that are simply just record just just recording their dnd session and not treating it like a live stream and yeah to those people i would say yeah to those people i would say why a live stream because i don't have any problem with that if you do it on youtube right on youtube you can just edit that and upload it and that's what people want i'm sorry sorry yeah the way you

Leighton Seys: This is so funny. The connections I keep here are like, so you mean I just put my live church service up and I don't engage people when it's live? I just let it go and hope people show up and enjoy? Like, oh, we're just doing a D&D session. Yeah, that'll be fun to just watch. Like, no. That's not.

Fedorable Will: Well. I mean, the interaction here, I mean, like, with chat here, we are reading chat, but we're not interacting with chat as much as we would on some other streams. Yes. So, like, yeah, so that is a podcast-y one where I interact with chat a lot less. But my point with what makes it live streamable is not having downtime, not having those dead air and things like that, keeping the engagement going because you're not editing the video.

Leighton Seys: You can't edit out the like, oh, yeah, let me look in page 158 for this rule over here.

Fedorable Will: No.

Leighton Seys: Well, if you're skilled enough, you could have someone in the party that could, you know, be the court jester and take the scene for a minute while you figure things out. But yeah, you got to have the right party makeup to do that kind of a stuff.

Fedorable Will: yes yes yes yes you oh you definitely have to have the right party makeup no matter what for for for for this kind of thing um and that has been the most fun thing for me not not just for like you know creating my party for the uh for my for my weekly campaign but also for the monthly chaos table one shots is creating a perfect blend of uh of streams just like you know i only bring in people that i that that i know and that are fellow streamers because if it's a fellow streamer then then they they they know how to avoid having dead air and they can keep okay yeah and so and secondly uh you know I know their personalities well enough to where I can be like, okay, so these two people know each other and can kind of bounce off of each other. This here person might not know the rest of them, but though is an agent of chaos that will just throw them all off.

Leighton Seys: So just because I'm curious now, what alignment do you usually play personally?

Fedorable Will: I don't get to be the player too often. I have been a little bit more recently. There's been some campaigns that have popped up. And I am usually... So for those of you who know with the alignment thing, you have this 3x3 grid where you have if you're a good, neutral, evil. And then for the columns, you have lawful... um neutral and uh chaotic uh chaotic yeah yeah actually i think it's i think it doesn't matter it's a grid it's a grid with those those variables It's a grid. Yeah. And so, um, I would place myself on, on that grid as, um, chaotic good. Usually. Yeah. Um, usually the, I, I, I like archetypes better, um, where, where, um, yeah, yeah. So, so I usually play either the wholesome naive one. Um, that's, that's like, um, what, what's a woman just like, no. just just like throw some chaos into there into there that way um that's or i or sometimes i i will i will play the like oh the old the old grizz the old grizzled one that's like i just pulled some salmon out my pocket you want to taste that kind of thing

Leighton Seys: Well, I guess I played back in the day, and so the alignment was really the thing that you are around. And, boy, I do not like lawful good people in my party. I just get driven nuts at times by the characters they play because I want to progress the story in a way. So I have evolved to play chaotic neutral. That is because I'm going to do what I want. I'm going to stay neutral, but I'm going to cause chaos. So I'm not on the good side. I don't have to do good. I'm not going on the evil side. I'm going to balance those two because I'm neutral, but I'm not lawful either, so I'm going to cause chaos. Yes. i i do play chaotic good uh otherwise too it depends on you know what do we need in the party if if uh the cleric i often play clerics if the cleric requires a good alignment i i will move that way i will not play a lawful character it won't happen and true neutral is just too hard to play yeah yeah i agree to that um yeah no i typically do uh druids or bards myself there yeah okay

Fedorable Will: Especially since I am a worship leader myself for my church, so barge really resonates with me.

Leighton Seys: There you go. The only barding I do is sea shanties or taking songs and putting them to the theme of the A-team. I'll just read scripture, and I'll sing it to the theme of the A-team or some other song that pops in my head. My stream could attest to that. So there's a plug for my stream. You never know when I'm going to break out and do scripture singing. Like, I think last week I was singing a psalm to the A-Team theme, and I tried to do the song of Deborah to the A-Team. It was almost working. I gave up because I felt, oh, I'm pushing this too hard.

Fedorable Will: Oh, that's beautiful, yes. And, yeah, that's a good way to differentiate yourself with, like, all the other, you know.

Leighton Seys: Yeah, you're probably not showing up to another pastor singing scripture to the A-Team theme song. It's probably not.

Fedorable Will: It's peak cinema.

Leighton Seys: I think we've gone in the barriers and the chaos that we're just bringing here. How about we shift around? What have been some blessings that you've experienced as a streamer? And what have been some that you have been a witness to that have happened for someone in your stream? Blessings.

Fedorable Will: Man. So, you know, back... Back in the day with that Rogue League group at the beginning, they had a similar podcast to this at the time. You know, just kind of meet the streamer type podcast. And I was on that. And they had me select a clip to show off that kind of like encapsulates my streamer vibe and to show off.

Leighton Seys: Yeah.

Fedorable Will: Um, and the clip I showed at the time was from, uh, one of my first hype trains. Um, and what made that hype train special was not the amount of, uh, of, of things I received, but the amount of people that were contributing to it. Right. they're just like if if one person comes in and drops like a thousand dollars that means less to me than a hundred people dropping one dollar yes exactly exactly totally agree

Leighton Seys: I'll get on a sidetrack if I said, but it's very similar to what you talk about. What would be better for the kingdom? One church of a thousand people or 10 churches of a hundred people or a hundred churches of 10 people. which is going to make a bigger impact in their neighborhood. I'm going to go with the churches of 10 people are probably going to make a bigger impact than the one church of 1,000. So I totally get what you're saying. It's an impactful thing. It means there's more support than just one person who believes in what you're doing and is backing you. That's awesome.

Fedorable Will: yeah exactly exactly and so that is always what makes streaming special to me is just um like just having a but having a bunch of people there in the chat i'm not looking at the numbers i i never do but though just knowing that there that there's like people in in in in the chat i mean i mean yeah just i mean y'all always say hi to your streamers just so they know that that that that you're there um you know drop your drop your little i i am the worst offender at this i'm a hypocrite in saying this because i'd stealth lurk all the time uh but say hi to your streamers it means a lot yeah i will

Leighton Seys: It depends on how long I'm going to be there. I will sometimes stealth lurk, but usually before I leave, I will say something. So if I came in your stream, I probably said something, unless I came in and then all of a sudden I got pulled out. I'm going to at some point. But one of the things is if I'm planning to lurk, sometimes I don't engage because I will be drawn in by people asking me questions. So that's why I will sometimes wait till the end and then I'll lurk for, I'll say something, I'll lurk, I'll engage. And then I, I, you know, I have to leave, but yes, it is so, it is so powerful to just say, Hey, I'm here. And, and to let people know that you're, that you're there for them.

Fedorable Will: Yeah. No, 100%. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And yeah, that's often some of the same reasons for me. If I say something, I would want to then hear their response and stuff like that. That's in my head. It's like...

Leighton Seys: you know that they're just going to say hi and thank you so just just just go well it's certainly that it's it's also the other people in chat like if it's if it's in the realm of a person you go to all the time the chat's going to engage you too and they're going to ask you questions that and i'm working on and i'm not gonna not gonna say who this is but this is when i realized that the relationships in the community were so deep and powerful is when someone on the other side of the world time change happened i couldn't watch them and then time change happened i was back in their stream and i said hello in there and before the stream streamer could even say anything six seven people are welcoming me back and saying hey it's so good to see you and i'm glad you're here and how have you been not in a way that i feel guilty like you know if you haven't been to church in a month and people where have you been like it didn't feel like that it was i'm so glad you're here and i felt welcomed and it was like oh my goodness This is totally different, and this is real relationships that's being developed. So I'm really working hard on getting them on my podcast, and hopefully in the next two to three months I'll be able to work something out. But if not, I will persist until I get them on my podcast. Yes. Because there's those people like that. Like I was asking you, like, what is a blessing you've had? That's one of the blessings. I don't think I've shared that on this channel. I've shared it on my own channel. I've shared it other places. But that's one of the blessings for me was to realize, wow, these people that I like, they're the other side of the world. I may never actually be in the same room with them. I may never actually be on the same continent as them. They've made a difference in my life. And I just think that's powerful. It's super powerful to be able to have that. Yeah, Nico's saying, honestly, that's Lucis and several others. Every time I pop in your stream, Church Digital, you guys are amazing at that, facilitating and building very real community. Yes, and it is. It's not just the streamer. It is the people in the chat. And that's one of the things that churches, and I'm not picking on you because I was there, churches that just put your service on live and you're not setting up a mod and you're not engaging the chat, you don't know that you need to do that. OK, but you do. I started doing that when COVID happened because I'm like, oh, everybody's at home. We need to do more than we do before. And and and I like it was hard to train my people to do that, but was really fun because, you know, through all of that, preparing some stuff, there would be some video that was done. The video of me is playing, but I'm chatting while the video of me is playing. It was super cool.

Announcer/Intro Voice: Oh, that's cool. Yeah.

Fedorable Will: yeah i mean my church does live streams and frankly we've been thinking about phasing out of it because like yeah like the live stream isn't why we're doing the live stream we're doing the live stream just so that we can have the vaude really uh and so uh yeah and and and that in of in and of itself is a good thing to have to have your content out there from from a church um and then you can engage them in the comments and things like that but um but yeah no it's it's um yeah honestly you're like because there are so many streams out there it's it's it's good when you're church shopping um to be able to like see how a church barna's latest stats and they're probably a year old that i know talked about people have watched you for six months before they walk through the door of your church interesting

Leighton Seys: So if you're not live, they're watching the VODs. But they've watched you. They've checked you out for six months before they walk through the doors of a church.

Fedorable Will: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, so I think it is important to have your church's content out there. And, yeah, so we'll continue to do that for sure. But, yeah, it's interesting the different dynamics. uh honestly with my streaming stuff i've helped with my church when my church is streaming stuff a bit here and there but though i i am while while as the worship leader as one of the worship leaders that that tech stuff does fall under my under my leadership um it's it's not something i i used to be more hands-on with with the uh with with doing that stuff uh but then like once i became an actual like leader for the worship stuff then my focus had to like uh turn away from the technology now i have a bunch of other people leading the technology on my behalf. And so now I'm not as hands on. So if I were to be more hands on, there would probably be some things that we're doing differently. But like at the end of the day, the people that are running it back there are not people like me that that know how to stream.

Announcer/Intro Voice: Right.

Fedorable Will: They are they are they are they are people that know how to how to do the presentations and and the and and and run the slides, things like that.

Leighton Seys: But it's it's a it's a shift from are you focused on the people that are present physically? Or are you inclusive of making everybody that's watching feel like they are present? It goes back to our conversation I had on your podcast. Are you including them in spiritual presence? with you and thinking about that spiritual presence with you and relational presence with you or is it only something to watch and it's something to consume and unfortunately unknowingly most churches have just defaulted to it's something to consume and then we end up with people not showing up in person and then they don't know who people are because they don't know how to reach out to people I want to try to help churches figure out how to connect to the people that are watching their VODs. How do you build the relationship with the people that are already interested in you that may never show up in person? Like, how do you engage that? How do you move into that direction? How do you embrace that and bring them closer to Christ? Because then when you do have, and they're close enough, you do have a celebration and an activity like Easter, they're going to want to be a present. physically if they are capable of doing it.

Fedorable Will: Yeah, yeah. And with that, no, yeah, my church leans towards, you know, like, we want people to be physically present so that we can, like, be able to, like, properly count them amongst our numbers. We just implemented official church membership this year. And so, like, that's something that we do care about is being fully present presence as much as possible because like when you're when you're present online um you know you uh and not in person there is a piece missing and we and we value uh we value that physical piece a lot at my church and so that's part part of why we don't focus on the live stream stuff as much um But, you know, again, it just depends on which part of the presence you value.

Leighton Seys: Yeah. Yeah. And we're not going to solve it for every church. And every church has different theology around different things of what they would consider viable to do via the Internet and what stuff they would not consider viable. As soon as you throw sacraments in there, I get a whole can of worms to answer. I'm not solving that for anybody. Don't I'm not trying to solve that for anybody. You go figure that out yourself amongst yourself with your group of people and what you're willing to do. And then that's it. You're not willing to do it. Then don't do it. You know, don't do a reasonable facsimile and pretend. Do what you're committed to, you know. But I love the aspects, though, of. So let me ask it a different way. Did the progression of getting more tech savvy, of doing stuff on Twitch, lead you to wanting to do more tech with your church and leaning into doing worship, or was it just totally unrelated?

Fedorable Will: I've always been into tech since I was very little. I figured out how to send an email at the age of, like, five.

Leighton Seys: Sorry, you're dating me here. Email at five. Like, we had Pong. We weren't sending any emails.

Fedorable Will: yeah yeah yeah so so um yeah technology has always been something that i've been very interested in i mean and and now it's my career i am a software developer so um so so i so i think that that um really that that love for technology came first Because when I first started volunteering at my church, I was one of the ones running the slides back there, running the AV booth. That was my first role because that was what I knew before I learned drums. I learned drums my freshman year of college. And that is how I got onto the worship team, found my love for worship, and then found myself becoming a worship leader. so um you know the um that'll just say that with regards to streaming then um yeah no it's it became the perfect blend for for for for things because because i love the technology stuff and also because so with app design um and things like that i love the like design parts of app design and so um with with my overlays things like that oh yeah i put a lot of my like ui ux expertise into it right so that's why my uh you know i i have my my my stream laid out kind of like like like a website where you have a sidebar on on the left um that that that that that contains like a column of information and then on the right is the main stuff i it's literally just web design but i applied it to an overlay

Leighton Seys: Well, part of the reason I was asking that is because it's interesting for me, as I started to do more things in digital space, I figured out some skills that I could apply to being in person. So that's why I was asking, like, was it some of the being a streamer that then was like, oh, now I have more confidence and I have more ability to say, yes, I have a space. to lead worship as opposed to just be in the tech in the back oh yeah i can play the drums in the back but i can actually move into the the one that everyone is looking at and leaning into so that does that was more of my curiosity was coming from is because without learning some things i learned being a twitch streamer i wouldn't have went started a prayer booth like that's gonna sound really weird but i started a prayer booth in my local artisan market But I apply the skills I learned digitally to being in person with people that I did not learn previously being in person with people.

Fedorable Will: i will say yeah there has been some skills i learned in streaming that then got brought into my worship leading um like for for like having having these nice transitions uh but but but but between songs and things like that um so like uh you know being because like you know i i that started off with me finding ways to transition into into plugging things and i plug many things i plug uh the the fact that you can get 10 off of your order of dragon rose coffee by using code for durable will uh you know link in the description and uh and so the yeah uh so so like the like just a few weeks ago when i was leading worship um we were we were singing the song i surrender all and i went and said um children ages ages uh three to kindergarten can be surrendered to kids equip

Leighton Seys: Yeah, the misstatements of things, yeah, they're certainly funny, which my brain always did when I was a kid, trying to dispel things differently, the different words that mean the same thing. So I'm just going to type this in the chat because if I say it, it won't mean anything because I'm going to say the exact same thing that you said. But there we go. That is how you can sing different words to that song and still sing the same words to that song.

Fedorable Will: i surrender all ah yes yes gosh gosh there are so many songs that i have cursed myself with like uh there's one song that goes four endless days we'll sing your praise and like oh four endless days four times infinity is just infinity well like i i

Leighton Seys: I am so glad I did not get the job of running slides because I spell horribly, and my brain would probably spell words wrong inadvertently. But one of my favorites is he's the defender of the week, W-E-E-K. So... I got it. Like the employee of the week, you know, he's the defender of the week. Yes, I got it. Now he's the defender of the week every week. So it's still good, but yeah, it's just a different meaning, you know? Oh yes, for sure. Now, now, now everybody who has heard the stories of me getting kicked out of Sunday school knows why. Because I got kicked out for changing the lyrics to songs in Sunday school. And so now you see my brain at work and what it did. And I'll plug this because it'll come out at some point. The book that I'm working on, I tell more in depth of that story in there. But it's from the perspective of I'm trying to teach lessons of what God taught me in ministry over the years. of how things change over time. And it's a recalculating. That's like my life is constantly in this, you're on the wrong path, recalculating. We're getting you back on the path where God wants you to go. So we're recalculating. You came to a dead end. We're recalculating. The bridge is out. We're recalculating. So that was one of those earliest moments of you're not staying here. You're moving somewhere else.

Fedorable Will: Yes. And then I guess just on a more practical level, like algorithm optimization stuff, I was the one that defined what tags we used on the videos and things like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Leighton Seys: Cool. So we're talking about blessings. So those are some pretty cool things. Are there been some blessings that you've witnessed for other people who've been in your stream, like something that was a prayer request that someone had that your community rallied around or somebody came in with something? It could be anything. Is there a moment of blessing that was for someone else and you just got to be a witness or a participant in it?

Fedorable Will: There are some. I mean, earlier in this, I mentioned how there's a lot of non-Christians that loved the truth times that I was doing. There's just those little scriptures at the end. And yeah, so just seeing that be a blessing to people was so cool. i mean and and just i i think the biggest thing is just the the friendships impact i would say i mean the fact that uh you know i got invited to someone's wedding well yeah was yeah that that there that there was pretty was was pretty big and like some some some of the amazing like reach conf being able to meet up with people in person and to be able to have gospel conversations with with people that have never had gospel conversations like that before that that is the icing on there

Leighton Seys: I was just going to shift and transition to reach, but before we do, you said there were a couple. Is there any others? So the development of relationships and, like, what a big deal to get invited to somebody's wedding and participate in that way. Like, we were talking about gaming sessions and those things earlier. I know people who have known each other for a dozen-plus years, and the first time they went in person was when they were at each other's weddings. That's how that group came together. They did not meet until a wedding took place, and then they gathered together with other people.

Fedorable Will: yeah yeah this couple i i had gotten to meet them in person before their wedding um simply because they uh once made a trip up to uh up to chicago ohio is it was between them and chicago and so they they decided to like stop by stop by my place on the way and uh and and And that was pretty sweet. But no, a lot of the people that were there at the wedding was first time being able to be there in person with each other and with a couple. And yeah, no, it just felt natural quite a bit. Just like, yeah, I don't know what like, oh, you're shorter than I expected. But other than that, you're pretty much the same. Yeah.

Leighton Seys: It is funny on some level when you just see a person who's sitting behind a camera. You don't always have reference to know distance and height and weight and any of those things. Yeah, there's been some people I'm like, wow, I had no idea you were that tall. And then there's people who are like, I didn't know you were that short. Like, yeah, yeah, I am that short. Which, by the way, I went to the doctor again this year, and I shrunk again. So I am on that downward spiral of losing height. And I don't know how accurate it is. I'm like, whatever. After I lost height two consecutive years, I figure it doesn't matter anymore. I'm just shrinking. The incredibly shrinking man instead of the incredibly shrinking woman.

Fedorable Will: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's interesting, the fact that I said, oh, yeah, you're shorter than I expected. And your first response to me was like, oh, yeah, you're taller than I expected.

Leighton Seys: You know, it's all perspective, isn't it? Exactly. I'll tell you who was way taller than I expected was Quiz King. Oh, my goodness. Like, not a little bit taller. Like, he was like a foot taller than I thought he was. Like, I'm like, oh, my goodness, he's a giant. Other people were, you know, okay, a little bit taller, a little bit shorter, but, like, I don't know why I thought he was shorter than he was. And, like, maybe because he looked kind of, like, body-wise like one of my kids, so I was imagining that height, and then he was just bigger all around, but... Oh, that's wild. Well, then let's just kind of shift into Reach. So how did you get connected with Reach to start with? And then what have been some of the blessings that you've experienced from being in the community and going to the conference? Because we're away from the conference, so it's not just about the conference itself.

Fedorable Will: Yeah. I first heard about it through Catherine Naomi, who was originally going to go to the first one, but wasn't able to. And so like that, that was the, that was the, that was the full, full stop on that. That was, that was all I knew about. It was someone was once wanting to go and then didn't, that was it. And then, and then, and then, and then, but though for the second one there, smart Alec. was was uh was going to go and man he and i have become basically stream besties at this point i i would call it um and and and so like you know it was it was like oh i get to go to a conference that's that and and meet up with alec in person like sign sign me up immediately what's the conference about oh it's about it's it's it's it's like basically it's just wholesome twitchcon don't sign me up

Leighton Seys: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Well, I did. Well, the the first conversation that I had, so I got a conversation early on because I knew Romans and had known him for a couple of years before it all was starting. And so I was one of the first people that he contacted and said, hey, we're looking to do Alpha course and have some streamers do this and prove. I'm like, you don't need to say any more. I've led Alpha at several different churches. I'm trained in doing Alpha. I already was contemplating doing Alpha on my stream this year. I'm in. I don't care what it is. I'm going to participate. And so I was early in, which is interesting because I was so early in, I did not get necessarily the invite to the Discord or some of the other stuff that got set up. So I didn't know everybody in there, and there were suggestions on what to do with your stream and all that. So what I missed was all of the different hints and helps to do alpha on my stream. I knew how to do alpha in a home setting. Stream was different, and I'm adapting on my own without other people who had figured it out telling me and helping me. So I was like, oh, that would be great to be in those conversations, but I missed it. Afterwards, it was like you said, like meeting people that you knew, getting to know people that you did not know, being in the community. Those are some of the things. So you missed it the first year. Then when did you pick it back up then after? Okay, so you heard about it, and now you got Alec, smart Alec, who you connected with. So it was just, okay, I know him. We're going to go. We're going to have fun. Was that it, or was there more?

Fedorable Will: Real quickly, though, can I have you define what Alpha is?

Leighton Seys: Oh, Alpha is an introduction to the Christian faith. So it's a course that was developed out of England, and it is a global – like there's been millions and millions of people that have gone through Alpha. So – Alpha, just being the first letter of the Greek alphabet, it's the beginning, so it's an introduction to the Christian faith. It's not designed to answer all of your questions. It's designed to be a safe place for you to come and be able to engage and ask questions. Gotcha. Totally the opposite of being the Bible answer man. Yeah.

Fedorable Will: Yeah. Okay. That makes sense. That makes sense. And then what was your question?

Leighton Seys: Oh, sorry. Yeah. I was just asking. So you knew, okay, it's a conference. We can go. I can meet up with people. When did you realize there's a Discord and get involved with other people? Or when did you, was it at the conference? Was it leading up to it? What was the transition or progress there of being in the community?

Fedorable Will: yeah so alec had a little discount code to be able to to be able to get in um and so you know that's how and then he told me about like oh yeah yeah so you know you can be a partner with them and things like that and so like you know i uh that that's got me interested i looked into what what what being a partner with them was all about and and like i was like yeah nope sign me up this is something i want i want to partner with yeah

Leighton Seys: Yeah, so what's your discount code? We'll just give that out now. Yeah, it's just adorable, yep. It's adorable. Ukulele was in here earlier. It's probably ukulele. Mine's flat cap. So go get a ticket from whoever you want, like whoever you're watching. If you want to go, it'll be a great time. Yeah, I'll let you keep talking because I've mentioned stuff on multiple streams. People are probably tired of hearing me talk about it. So what was the most unexpected thing that you experienced that you would not want to have given up when you were at Twitch? I mean, sorry, you were at Reach Conference.

Fedorable Will: At Reach Conference itself. All right. Damn, man. honestly just being able to have some some crazy conversations i i know frey was in was it was in here earlier uh and i keep bringing this up as the prime example of the kind of shenanigans i was trying to pull during that because i uh so we were bringing him to his hotel um um home home from uh from waffle house we were just at and this is like you know one or two in the morning I turn to him. He's sitting behind me in the car, and I turn to him, and I ask him, so what is your take on the Calvinistic view to predestination? At two in the morning after Waffle House.

Leighton Seys: Okay, okay.

Fedorable Will: so he did honestly he did not have an answer at two in the morning for me on that one but that just goes to like i i love having deep theological questions where you know like dialogue where where we like dig deep into things and like figure out the why because i i did not ask that question to like spread my love of calvinism no i i just genuinely want to just like i i love using that as a like let's start thinking kind of question.

Leighton Seys: Yeah. Well, I have to say one of my favorite memes is Gandalf and it says, a Calvinist is never late. He always shows up exactly when he was predestined to.

Fedorable Will: Yes.

Leighton Seys: Amen.

Fedorable Will: Yeah. So no.

Leighton Seys: Yeah. Conversations were so, so amazing. Yeah. And you and I had two or three that just went on and we had a crowd that gathered at times and and engaged with multiple people, which is even more fun than just two people having a conversation when someone else is able to add into it. Like Raya Sunshine is this popping in the chat there? You know, it's those interactions with other people and something that's more meaningful than, hey, I got a new flat cap, you know? I mean, great and all, and I'll talk about it for a month, but after that, it doesn't mean anything, you know? But... questions that we're dialoguing about faith are going to be ongoing, and we're going to be sharpening iron with each other and learning and growing, and also when we're talking about what's going on in our lives.

Fedorable Will: yeah for sure for sure yeah yeah seriously like just being able to like have some deeper conversations about people's lives and to be able to then like hug them as they like as as as as as as we give some like just you know those loving tears there oh man that that is because you know because uh and we talked about this during our uh our talk on metaphysics just that's you know afterwards people were were all saying like oh yeah like uh you know that uh i miss you even though we were still interacting with one another people said i miss you because they they saw like man like being in person that like that is a more complete presence with one another and it's a lot more sweeter and and because we are built bodily and so to experience one another bodily is is more according to our design yeah i definitely agree that there is something

Leighton Seys: tangible that you can have when you are physically present that you cannot have when you're not physically present. But I'm going to leave the body conversation to another time because we would just go on a whole rabbit trail down there. You need to, I'll just say this, you need to go explore what's, and I'm just in the process of doing this, so that's why I'm saying it because I think you'd enjoy it, some of the Eastern Orthodox teaching and thinking around the body. And I'll send you a link to like I just got turned on to a new podcast that is Eastern Orthodox talking about stuff. And the podcast I'm listening to right now is around the body. And I'm scratching my brain on this. And so I cannot articulate it yet accurately of where they're coming from. But it's super fun. That's one of the things like. I'll just say this, like, without Twitch, I don't get exposure to things like that. And it's funny, like, what do you mean, Twitch? Yeah, that's where I'm getting exposure to other Christians who are freely sharing their faith and sharing things with me that I did not know. Like, we were having a conversation about YouTube earlier. Well, I shared something that you didn't know. And Nico, who is in Denmark, also knew of the podcast that I was sharing. So it's like... The two of us knew it. Why didn't you know it? Obviously, you should have known. Come on, man. But there's more openness towards one another instead of fighting boundaries with each other. So there's no Orthodox church in my town. I don't think there could be one in my county, but I doubt it. The county next to me has got the second largest city in the state. There's probably one there. But, OK, I'm going to drive over there, go into a church with people I don't know just to explore and learn things and then say, no, I'm not here to learn your stuff because I'm going to believe it. I'm just curious. Like, I don't want to disrespect them either. So, you know, there's there's those means of things that, you know, to go back to. Why are people showing up in your stream when you're talking about the Bible? Because even if they're not a Christian, it's not a barrier to walking through the doors of a church if they're a Muslim, if they're an atheist, if they're Hindu, if they're Sikh, if they're anything else. There's a barrier to walk in the doors of a church when all they want to do is explore and begin to learn. Twitch is really safe for that because you can remain anonymous from your family and friends who might judge you for it while you're exploring and learning.

Fedorable Will: yeah no yeah i no i agree it's a great i mean i i mean without twitch i mean just having other friend groups irl as well right you know be like uh because yes this is this is through twitch we get we get we get the unique privilege of learning all sorts of different other cultures in general because like since since my lunch hour streams are right in the middle of the day for us here in america they're right at the end of the day for those in europe So I have some European friends that I've gotten to meet over this. But no, yeah, I mean, we should always be seeking to, you know, like, meet people where they are. And where they are, yes, Twitch is one of those places. But also, equally valid is, like, I don't know. the the bar if you don't have an alcohol problem or or if or or at or at like a social club of some sort like like a d d group

Leighton Seys: Yeah, well, absolutely, those are places. But usually a D&D group, you're going to know the people. It's not a pickup game. So you have to have an invite by somebody to bring you in. You're right, the bar could be a thing. But if you're a Muslim in a Muslim country, you've got to find some other place to go to be able to do that too. And the other reason I bring that up is it's not that there aren't other places online that you could do this too. It's if you're in a closed country that's monitoring where you go, they're not looking at Twitch at this point yet and thinking, oh, there's a bunch of people teaching you Christian theology and the Bible in Twitch. A person in a closed country can walk through the doors of Twitch and the government never thinks anything about it. And their family and friends, what are you doing? Watching Twitch. Oh, those video game people? Yeah, those video game people, whatever. And they brush it off. So people can safely explore and get exposure in Twitch that they may not be able to in some places. So I just love that.

Fedorable Will: Yeah, no. It definitely opens up a lot of unique avenues for sure, yeah.

Leighton Seys: And we're missing a whole bunch of chat. And Nika, love you, man. Also think religious divide is such a thing these days. It's nice to join channels like these. And for me as a Sikh, see our similarities and celebrate those as opposed to what might differentiate us. Yes. Starting with those points of commonality where, you know, the truth of God is evident to all people. yeah yeah for sure yeah i'm not very familiar with seek specifically so i'll have to look into that later but yeah that's interesting so any any other things that stood out to you from reach conference that you that you got to experience while you were there i mean

Fedorable Will: I feel like some of the most memorable stuff actually was stuff before and after Reach Conference. During Reach Conference, there was a lot of hugging, crying, a lot of fun that was being had. But then also, like... day before we went to uh the new universal epic universe park and and and and and yeah just being able to like have have have that be my first encounter with with a lot of these people and to just like you know make make all these all these fun memories and experiences with them but then most of all the lunch on sunday afternoon the next day uh just just with uh just you know being able to unpack everything that's that's happened with one with one another um and then also i uh the two things that that that that uh that i marked that sunday with is theology because of course i would be i would continue having theology conversations on that day uh and and and and taxiing because uh after i had dropped off uh my roommates to to the airport like my i specifically chosen my time to fly out to be to be later in the evening so that i would have time to just kind of mingle in the meantime and so i was just driving people back and forth to the airport for the re for the rest of that day and just having some conversations with people and it's a lot of fun

Leighton Seys: Yeah. Yeah, I also drove a lot of people back and forth to the airport. I think I made six trips to the airport on Sunday. Dang. And then my flight got canceled. Yep. My flight got canceled. I got caught in that. And then I had to get a hotel room. And I posted, hey, is anyone else in this situation? It's a story for another day or go watch the podcast with Stratus because I think I told it there. I sweet-talked them into a room when they didn't have to give me a room, and I got a room, and then I posted, hey, anybody else that's stranded, let me know if you need a room. Shell Stratus ended up stranded as well, so he came and crashed with me. And we had a blast until I was exhausted. It was catching up with me. I was starting to get sick. And I'm like, I got to go to bed now. And I just like, boom, instantly went to sleep. So yeah, it was that ongoing engagement with people and milking it for every moment and ounce of presence that you had with people, including the number of hugs that I could get in. I mean, I got a lot of hugs in, and that was... Yes! Like, virtual hugs, I appreciate the gesture, but I can't feel the gesture. You know? I don't get to feel the hug, and I have to say... Those are some of the longest hugs that I've had in a long time. You know, not the, hey, buddy, how you doing? And pat on the back. And they were like, oh, man, I just want to embrace you and want you to know how much that, you know, your relationship means to me. Yeah.

UNKNOWN: Yeah.

Fedorable Will: I'm not sure how much content you have left, but the 15-minute-ish warning, because I typically go three whole hours, but though I have someone coming in from out of town this weekend.

Leighton Seys: No worries. I just always tell the guest, plan for two hours plus. So wherever we land the plane afterwards, and we're in a good spot. The only thing I was going to ask next was, what is your plans? that you're looking forward to this year, something new you're doing with stream or some goal you're trying to accomplish. What are, what is the future this year look like for, for durable? Well, so.

Fedorable Will: in terms of well i'll start with the long-term stuff in general then i'll get get to the specifics the long-term stuff in general is i um i i i don't want to get too tied down um like it like uh because at the end of the day my software development job is going to be what provides for for uh way more consistently than than streaming ever could and i want to be able to um like have my house sorry have my wife like be a housewife and and and not have to work herself and then also have five kids so uh streaming is not going to support that support that dream at all so um that that with that with that goal in mind i so i you know i'm always thinking of like okay if if i if i had to like you know whittle it down what would what are the essentials right because there are four different uh four different streams of content that i create right now the lunch hour streams which are now nintendo nintendo game first playthroughs because i found that to be a lot more enjoyable than the speed runs um and then uh the uh and then we have the uh theology stuff on thursdays the thinkology series um and then we have the monthly chaos table one shots and then the weekly super smash quest the weekly tabletop rpg campaign um so tabletop rpg stuff is what i've been doing um like for like about three years now so like most most of the journey now it started about a year in um and and um that there is the stuff that i have the uh the most fun with is the tabletop rpg stuff and it's the stuff that uh that that like you know um i i feel like i ha it's a bit more unique as to what i'm doing especially with chaos table um and and and and so that's the stuff that i that that i can see popping off more um and so i am that's that has been that's my goal this year is to get i made chaos table into its own youtube channel um and so like you know i'm trying i'm trying to get that there off the ground by the way if y'all haven't uh there is free to um to subscribe to a channel on youtube by the way so uh go and hit up the chaos table channel with it with a little subscribe if any of y'all haven't yet uh but yes so so that there i i i i am trying to uh to take it off the ground so that there was uh you know stuff that i'm actually editing uh and spend and spending more time on because because before with chaos table that there was just just for twitch right because that's what the format kind of leads to what lends more to but though um i want i uh you know some of that started to like gain more traction on my on on my main youtube channel than my weekly campaign was and so uh and then it tanked because the the the weekly campaign stuff was weighing it down because i was mixing ips having both smash bros and d d So I was getting a fraction of a fraction. Yeah. So now I'm setting it free and I'm letting it thrive. So that is the main thing is just chaos table improving that. I'm going to be refreshing some of the channel point stuff because a lot of the channel point stuff that you can do there has not changed in the past three years. so i'm so refreshing some of that bringing in some some new some new ideas um and then also continuing on the theology talks i do want to see where i'm having a lot of fun with the theology talks and so um i i want to see where this goes i just wish that i had more time right to really make it be able to thrive on youtube but i want to give it this like i want to kind of grow it on twitch and see what happens and then see if i want to it has a what direction it really has a place on twitch you know yeah that it it can reach people who are looking for it like we were talking about earlier

Leighton Seys: that they might not be able to go to YouTube because it might be all of the key markers that tell it's Christian and it's theology are going to get banned in that country. It's going to be behind a firewall, and they won't have access. At Twitch, they will. It'll still be there. Yeah. But I hope that there's a place for it in YouTube for other people. So that's awesome. I love that. Like a four-fold, here's what you're doing. That's pretty cool, man.

Fedorable Will: Yeah, yeah.

Leighton Seys: All right. As we come to the end, I had two raids today. That's super cool. We get to raid out now. So I like to ask the guest, who should we raid out to? Because we get to go do a double raid and both bring your channel and my channel over to someone else and just bless them tonight. Or they might be mourning already the other side of the world. True, true. We're going to bless them tomorrow, but we're doing it today. Ooh.

Fedorable Will: okay there ooh i okay okay i think i i i there there are there are two options here and i think it's been longer since i have rated this the uh this particular person and also frankly this person is still just um early in his uh streaming career and i think uh and I think is worth giving a little boost to. His name is Renai Paragonic. He's one of the people that I met during ReachConf and really found a kindred spirit.

Leighton Seys: I did not meet them. I don't recognize the name at all.

Fedorable Will: Yeah, yeah. He and I are very kindred spirits in terms of, like, loving those kind of deep theology talks. Right now he is doing a Pokemon Nuzlocke where he is, like, naming all of the things, all of his little Pokemon after, like...

Leighton Seys: uh characters in the bible and then like using that as as a means to like kind of uh you know expound on that and stuff so very cool yeah i love being introduced to new people that's what i that's what i love like you're going to know people i don't i mean it's fine if we raid reach reach conference streamers i mean i love them but to learn somebody new who actually is a reach conference connected that's cool i'm gonna have to to go over there we'll bless them so If you want to say your farewells, I'll say mine, and then we will start the raid, we'll do our credits, and we'll raid out.

Fedorable Will: Okay, so we're splitting off to do our ending segments?

Leighton Seys: Oh, if you want to do yours separate, I was just doing them together is what I was thinking.

Fedorable Will: Oh, doing them together.

Leighton Seys: Okay, that's what I'm saying. You go first, then I'll go, then we'll push the raid button, and we'll go to our credits.

Fedorable Will: all righty well in that case if you love someone you tell them the truth boy i do i love you guys so here's our truth that can be found in ephesians 3 20-21 now to him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or understand according to the power that works within us to him be the glory in the church and in christ jesus to all generations forever and ever

Leighton Seys: amen amen that's our true time for today and all the time that we have for today what do you have all right i i just like thank you thank you thank you everybody for being here i like to say it three times like like i really appreciate it i mean you could be anywhere watching anyone else you chose to be here If you've watched the VOD to this point, you are my kin. I love you. Thank you for hanging out all the way to the end. We go on some weird rabbit trails. We have weird conversations. If you love this, if you've been hanging out here live the whole time, thank you, thank you. If you're watching the VOD, thank you. I don't even need to ask you to give a like and a thumbs up. You stayed to the end. You already did that. Like, by staying to the end, you have done that. So thank you, everybody, and appreciate you. I will be on my stream tomorrow for Affiliateiversary, so stop by. I'm only promoting it because I'm giving away a REACH conference ticket tomorrow. So if you want to stop by Flat Cap Dapper Pastor tomorrow, you could win a ticket to Reach Conference, and I'll be streaming at 8 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. Otherwise, when I roll the credits, you'll see what the new podcasts are going to be coming out, when the next podcasts are going to be recorded, and have a blessed day, everybody. All right, so if we go three, two, one, and push start raid, and we'll be close to a raid now at the same time, and I'll hit my credits after that. Three, two, one. All right, sounds good to me. Raid started, and we'll get the countdown. I'll throw some credits, and we'll see everybody on the other side. All right.