Digital Parish: How it started and how it's going with CrossFire Faith+Gaming

Ryan Dunn [00:00:02]:

Hey. This is Pastoring in the Digital Parish, your resource for building your digital ministry toolkit and bringing your congregation into the digital age. This is a special episode. We're joining together with Crossfire Faith in Gaming, And reverend David Petty is gonna join us as well so that we can learn about their story in entering into digital ministry, how it started and how it's going and also, how they're doing some discipleship in a new and innovative kind of way. Plus, this Episode is special because we're streaming live as part of the United Methodist podcastathon. This is actually wrapping up what's been a full week of livestreams on ResourceUMC Facebook page. You can follow back. It's been a great week talking about discipleship, so check out the ResourceUMC Facebook page or resourceumc.org.

Ryan Dunn [00:00:57]:

While we're on that, I do have to Let you know that this has been sponsored, of course, by resource unc.org. It's your one site to click, find, lead. So don't waste your time searching multiple websites. Discover content created just for leaders like you. Whatever your ministry, you'll find everything you need at resource umc.org. We found here on the Pastoring in the Digital Parish podcast that there's just a lot of use in hearing the stories of other digital ministry practitioners. So today, we're partnering with Crossfire Faith and Gaming to learn their digital ministry story. Reverend David Petty is with us.

Ryan Dunn [00:01:36]:

He's the founder of Crossfire, and we'll get into the how and why he decided to do all that in a little bit. He's also currently serving as senior pastor at Saint Paul's United Methodist Church in Colorado Springs, Colorado. He's worked in film production, in business to business marketing, and in camping ministries. David, anything else you wanna throw in there?

David Petty [00:01:58]:

No. There's nothing else I can think of. I think that's most of it. Yeah. Alright. Well, photography, I guess. Yeah. A a professional wedding and portrait photographer for 10 years.

David Petty [00:02:07]:

Yeah.

Ryan Dunn [00:02:07]:

Oh, right on. Okay. Alright. Which probably comes in handy in figuring out some ways of representing what we do in digital space. So Let's go back to the beginning of Crossfire Faith in Gaming. What drove you to start an expression of ministry that is really kinda focused in the online gaming space.

David Petty [00:02:27]:

Yeah. So, so rewind back to 2017. I was fresh in ministry, and I was only, in ministry for a couple years. One of the things they tell us ministers when we start out is, you know, you really have to be careful with self Care. Make sure that you're doing things that are enjoyable, taking time for yourself, you know, going on a walk, going on a hike, playing, those kind of things. And so one of the things I did was to kind of reconnect with my childlike sense of play, through gaming, video gaming. And when I did that, I started looking for communities that I could plug into. And one of the communities I actually found was a community that was part of my, College music fraternity that I was part of, fitting actually as today is October 6th.

David Petty [00:03:12]:

It's the 100 25th anniversary of the founding of that fraternity. But within that fraternity, there was a Discord channel, an online space where people could get together that had a a common, sense that they were all a part of the same fraternity, but they were all video gamers, and so they were looking for games to play, people to play with, you know, just conversations. And I found in that space a lot of community, and I thought to myself, I wonder if this could be replicated in In a church sense. Like, what if there were a group of people who had a like mindedness because they were people of faith, but also had an affinity for gaming? So I started asking that question, and then it just kinda snowballed into the thing it's become today. So, it was really from that experience and then from that question of what could this be, that Crossfire came to be.

Ryan Dunn [00:04:01]:

Was this, like, pre Twitch and all that? Like, what kind of community where were you finding people in the gaming space in the beginning?

David Petty [00:04:08]:

Yeah. So so long ago.

Ryan Dunn [00:04:09]:

Right? 2017.

David Petty [00:04:10]:

No. 2017, Twitch was definitely still a thing. You know, it was and I would even say it was probably more on its upswing than, you know, now I feel like Twitch is kind of on the downswing, but, you know, but Twitch, I think, was definitely a thing. Discord was a thing. It was not as popular as it is today. And, certainly, I think the youth and young people hadn't found it quite as much. And now, you know, my son, who's 13, is on Discord, and all of his interactions are on Discord. But Discord, Twitch, a lot in Facebook.

David Petty [00:04:43]:

At that point, Facebook groups was kinda taking off, and Facebook was really emphasizing groups. So we actually started by creating a Facebook group of people interested in talking about what this could look like, and then that group of people talking about what it could look like Became the group of people we wanted it to be. So Okay. Solely we added more people. We started exploring. You know? But it was all pre pandemic, and so People didn't believe in the possibility of an online ministry yet. So that was an interesting arc that we took through the pandemic.

Ryan Dunn [00:05:14]:

Well, when you first felt the, the push to the Holy Spirit or or heard that call towards digital ministry, like, what did you imagine the or what did you imagine the mission of the of the group was gonna be? Like, what were you gonna do in practice?

David Petty [00:05:30]:

Yeah. I think, initially, my goal was to find a space where people could feel welcome who had otherwise not felt welcome in a church. I was thinking about the fact that that most of the people that I was seeing, you know, youth, young adults that were in these online gaming spaces were not the same people I was seeing in my Sunday morning parish. You know, they were not young adults showing up in my church. There were not a lot of youth showing up in my church. And I said, this is an entire demographic of people that is Being missed. And so, you know, can we create a space? Because I don't think these people are gonna just walk in the doors of a church Because they've been hurt by the church, because they've been alienated, because they're not, you know, socially, you know, they're kinda socially awkward sometimes, and and maybe stepping foot in a strange building with people that are singing songs you don't know, that's not the first, place you wanna go. So I said, what if we could create church that looks more like something that feels welcoming for them than what we're familiar with.

Ryan Dunn [00:06:31]:

So were there Were you trying to then gather people together in digital spaces through games? Like, for example, I remember at that time, like, people were meeting in Roblox or people were having, like, Minecraft gatherings. Were you doing any of that kind of thing, or was it kind of the gaming was the focus, and then you were meeting community elsewhere?

David Petty [00:06:49]:

Yeah. It was really, I like there's a phrase in one of Jane McGonigal's books. She talks about playing games alone together, And the idea that you can be in a space where you're playing games think of the arcade. You're playing games. The person next to you is playing games. You're together in that space, but you're playing your own games. And so that was really kind of what we found initially was a lot of people played different games. This person's into Minecraft.

David Petty [00:07:14]:

This person's into Rocket League. This person's into Roblox. This person's over here playing Duke Nukem or something. And and we're sitting there saying, okay. Well, let's just gather around the commonality that we love games, rather than trying to force everybody into 1 specific game.

Ryan Dunn [00:07:31]:

Okay. And did you have a did you have an idea in mind of how to make kind of the, the Jesus turn or, like, the theological turn. So you you get together and you talk about games, and then how does it become were you directive about it becoming like a spiritual thing, or or putting some kind of spiritual practice into a community like that?

David Petty [00:07:51]:

Yeah. We definitely early on, it was kind of hard to figure out, you know, what does this look like? The first thing I wanted to do, I likened it to youth ministry, which is where, like, you know, my primary goal in youth ministry is to gather kids in a space where they feel safe and loved. And if we can Encounter Christ in that space too and, like, deepen our faith in the scriptures and do discipleship, great. But if the only thing we can do is Have them in a space where they know that they're loved and cared for and have community, then that's perhaps better than what they're finding out there in the world. But, but in this sense, we had no idea what that was gonna look like coming into it. But I really got a lot of inspiration early on from one of my professors at ILEF, Tom Barlow, who, then I think was in parish ministry, now might be back in being professor. But he said he was really fascinated by The question of what stories we tell when we play video games or watch movies or TV shows, he said, I'm really interested in the stories. And so that got me thinking, what are the commonalities between the stories we're telling in video games, which are, you know, hero archetypes or perhaps Antihero, archetypes.

David Petty [00:08:57]:

What are these stories, and how do they relate or not with the story of Christ? And so, through the use of we found some great resources. There was a book called, By Geekdom Come, And there's a part 1 and part 2. One's fantasy. One's sci fi. And they just look at pop culture references and how they relate back to the Christ story. So through that, we then started doing devotionals. It was like, you know, here's the devotional from Minecraft. Here's the devotional from Star Wars.

David Petty [00:09:26]:

Here's the devotional about the Mandalorian, for, you know, doctor who, you know, those kind of things. Okay. And what does your devotional look like in a digital meeting? So often, we would we would have, we would have somebody read the devotional from the book. And usually, the devotional in the book with a scripture. And so we would actually say, okay. Let's just popcorn. Read the scripture. We would read through the scripture.

David Petty [00:09:50]:

We would then read the devotional. And then usually at the end of the devotional, there's 3 or 4 questions. And then we would let that guide our questions in the in the gathering. And so sometimes it was, you know, alright. This is 5 minutes of questions, and we're not really going deep. And we're just gonna kind of that's gonna be what it is tonight. And sometimes it would be the next 2 hours, and we're still talking about, you know, What do you think about that? And and that's really interesting because I've never thought about that scripture in that way.

Ryan Dunn [00:10:16]:

Yeah. I like how you've You've compared this to youth ministry because that that's my experience, and this is really kinda hitting because, you know, some nights, like, you gather students together, and, you know, the conversation is off the wall. It's about Taco Bell or yeah. You're just not able to get on to that devotional point. I know that, in my practice of youth ministry, sometimes we would come across a game that really just kind of ignited the enthusiasm of the students. Like, sometimes they would show up just to play that game. You know? It might be, like, 9 square in the air. We had a a card game called mafia that they were really into.

Ryan Dunn [00:10:51]:

Was there a particular video game early on that really kind of ignited the the Crossfire community like that?

David Petty [00:10:58]:

I think Minecraft was big for a lot of our folks for a while because it is kind of a universal game. It's on all the platforms. So we actually started to still have a couple Minecraft servers Going one creative and one survival because we found those 2 types of Minecraft players are very different

Ryan Dunn [00:11:14]:

Okay.

David Petty [00:11:14]:

Whether they wanna play Legos or whether they wanna, you know, go out there and fight zombies. But, but that became a place for community that a lot of people got into. And then a good number of us played Rocket League, and so that was, You know, kind of a, very friendly, easy adoption game. Very hard to master, but anybody can get in and drive a car and try to hit a soccer ball. So

Ryan Dunn [00:11:36]:

Okay. Well, I wanna get into what ministry looks like for you now and and particularly, about how you envision growing through digital means. But I do gotta stop in and offer a, a little note from our sponsor here. So Paying college gets harder every year. United Methodist Higher Education Foundation invites United Methodist Churches to help us send your students to receive a quality education at United Methodist related colleges, universities, and seminaries. When your church sponsors a $1,000 scholarship for a student, our foundation matches that. Additional matches from participating schools and United Methodist Conference Foundations may bring the grand total up to $4,000 per student. This popular scholarship program not only benefits students and families, but also supports our United Methodist schools.

Ryan Dunn [00:12:29]:

You can learn more about the United Methodist Higher Education Foundation's Together, let's educate future leaders in our communities, churches, and the world. And again, that's umhef .org. All right. David, we're talking about raising up disciples, educating people, and reaching people in new spaces. How have you gone about in the past, and how do you go about today drawing people into the ministry? How are you making connections?

David Petty [00:13:07]:

Yeah. Before I get into your your question, just, yeah, huge thank you to UMHEF for that sponsorship. I was a recipient of some dollars for scholars, funds back when I was at ILIFE School of Theology. So, yeah, thank you to UMHEF for sponsoring this podcast and sponsoring my education. So right. So back to the question about digital discipleship and, finding new people. I think early on, we took an approach that was kind of the The shotgun approach that we wanted to be a little bit in all spaces, which is challenging, I think, in a lot of ways, but we Have an Instagram that we post on regularly. We still post on our Facebook groups and our Facebook page.

David Petty [00:13:44]:

Twitch has been a big one for finding people that Just kind of stumble across our feed and then say, oh, I really enjoy your content. And then they, you know, join our community and participate in our Monday night Discords. So, you know, I think we still post on X, formerly known as Twitter, but I'm not sure. I think it's just a connection that goes there. But, yeah, trying to show up in as many spaces and places as possible and then telling our story. You know, with some so some of that has been developing our story for the last couple years, and then getting out there and talking about it in our conference and, you know and this is, as you mentioned, you know, I'm a full time pastor. This is like a Tiny side thing that I do. So it's been challenging a little bit finding the time to get out there and really spread the word.

Ryan Dunn [00:14:30]:

Yeah. Well, as you bring that up, how have your congregations, responded to some of this stuff? Like, do they are you finding that people within your congregation get into it, or are most of the people who you're connecting with beyond your congregation?

David Petty [00:14:45]:

Mostly, it's it's people beyond my congregation. When I was in Meeker, I had a couple of people that were in the community. And and Meeker, my former church, was a very small town, tiny rural town, and it was also a place that Guided my inspiration for Crossfire because I realized that there were people who were nerds and geeks and gamers in Meeker Who didn't have more than a handful of friends that could relate with them. You know, most people in Meeker are hunters and ranchers and Farmers and and these people who are nerds and geeks and gamers, there's, like, 3 or 4 of them that kind of relate to one another. So there were some of those folks that joined Crossfire and became really vital in the early days of our ministries. At my current church, I don't think there's anybody that's participating in Crossfire. And so in some ways, that's a neat lack of Venn diagram, if you will, that I'm ministering to people who are completely different in the online space than those people that I'm ministering to on Sunday mornings Done throughout the week.

Ryan Dunn [00:15:43]:

Yeah. Okay. It's not a callout in any way, but it's just a a note that it's like, hey. This is reaching new people who are not otherwise responding to what might be, like, a more traditional expression of church. Right?

David Petty [00:15:54]:

Right. And often the conversations I have with the folks in my churches, when I tell them about the ministry that I do through Crossfire, They say, well, look. I don't understand video games because I'm 78 years old. And not that 78 year olds can't get into video games, but they tell me, you know, look. I'm 78. I've never been into video games. But you know what? My grandson would love this, and I hear that all the time.

Ryan Dunn [00:16:17]:

Yeah. Cool. Well, the theme of these shows that we do on debt pastoring in the digital parish sometime is how it started versus how it's going. So what does the rhythm of of ministry look like for Crossfire today?

David Petty [00:16:30]:

Yeah. So the the rhythm Really is it's kind of a weekly rhythm, and there's 2 things going on. I would say there's our normal weekly thing, and then there's the summer camp that we just got started last So that's a whole other thing. I'll talk about that in a second. But on a weekly basis, you know, we post online, in a variety of channels about Upcoming games, we post some devotional topics, you know, try to kind of post inspiring things, and then we interact throughout the week in our Discord channel. That's kind of the, the sacred space, if you will, that's the common held space where pretty much everybody that's a part of this of Crossfire participates in the Discord. And then Monday nights, we gather 8:30 mountain time, every single Monday, and I think we haven't missed a Monday in probably 3 or 4 years, except for some holidays we've taken off. But, pretty much every single Monday at 8:30, we gather, and however many people show up, we have fellowship time.

David Petty [00:17:23]:

We with one another, and then usually we do a devotional. We've even done communion on there sometimes. We'll say, you know, hey. 1st of the month, let's go ahead and do communion together. So it's a really special place. So and I would say that's the regular rhythm of ministry. Occasionally, usually 1 to Two times a week, we will stream on Twitch by either myself or my cohost on the podcast, Russ Dornish. And then we also post a podcast once, every 2 weeks.

David Petty [00:17:48]:

That's usually related to something in digital ministry, around gaming. In the past, we've talked about how to use gaming in youth ministry, whether games are sinful. We've talked about parenting, gamers. We've talked about, upcoming video games. We've talked about violence in video games, all sorts of different topics. And then the summer camp thing really came about a couple years ago. We wanted a way to really reach out to youth specifically, And, I heard the kind of call from my own children, that were saying, you know, I don't really wanna go to summer camp Because I just wanna stay home and play video games with my friends. And, you know, especially during the pandemic, that was one of the only ways that kids interacted with their friends was through video games, through Fortnite or Minecraft.

David Petty [00:18:33]:

And so I said, well, what if there was a summer camp where you could go and make friends and play video games and have the summer camp experience. So we created a summer camp. We did a trial run last year in the Denver metro area, and we had a a day camp model, kind of a summer camp for a full week. And then this next year, we're looking at, doing another Denver day camp model, And then doing an overnight weekend model up in Bozeman, Montana. So those will be really exciting and and unique ways for youth to engage in an in person basis that a lot of youth are not getting. I mean, we talked about the lack of couch coop that, like, when I was a kid, I was playing on the same couch with a friend of mine, and kids nowadays don't get that. But I tell you, the camaraderie that they felt playing video games together in the same room, for some of those kids, I think, was life changing.

Ryan Dunn [00:19:24]:

No. Well, you talked about not missing a Monday night for 3 years. Now, certainly, you have not been at all those Monday night gatherings, have you?

David Petty [00:19:32]:

Not every single one of them. Usually, it's between myself or Russ or Brian, Swift that's hosting it, and we just make sure somebody's on there. And Yeah. You know, I think it's it's organic. Right? It's not unlike a church that requires somebody up front to lead it and everybody else to be in attendance. It's much more circular in, you know, the kind of the nights of the round table, if you will. The everybody's kind of on an equal playing field, and we come and learn from each other. So, But those Monday nights have happened, and people have gathered whether I've been there or not.

Ryan Dunn [00:20:05]:

Yeah. Well, my question was pointing towards This idea then that you're using these digital spaces then to kinda elevate some people into leadership so that it's not just, like a broadcast of You should know you as the leader, and everybody else is just kinda consuming, but there's enough interaction where people are being brought up into an empowerment in leading the the faith community. Are you directional about that in some way, or does it happen more or less organically?

David Petty [00:20:34]:

Absolutely. We're we're early on, I think we decided as much as we wanted to be in all of these digital spaces, and I didn't mention, I guess, we are on TikTok. But as much as we wanted to be in these digital spaces, we did not wanna be influencers. I did not wanna become a celebrity. I did you know, this was not the goal of why I created this thing, was not to make myself famous or make myself well known. My goal was to create a really awesome space where people could gather. And so lifting up and empowering, the laity, if you will. You know, coming up on Laity Sunday in a couple weeks here.

David Petty [00:21:07]:

But lifting up and empowering laypeople to lead and gather and learn from one another, I think was huge. And quite frankly, I'll take a page out of Wesley's book. Know, if I get in trouble for letting laypeople serve one another communion, then so be it. But so far to my knowledge, that hasn't happened, so don't bring me up on charges. But

Ryan Dunn [00:21:28]:

we're we're getting some affirmations in the in the chat. Nathan says, well, to be fair, that nobody wants to be on TikTok. I guess we all just feel, like, pulled into TikTok. Also invitations to bring your camp to Charlotte, invitations for more United Methodists on Twitch, some affirmations that we're gonna be like, this generation is going to be gaming into their old age So that we will see a generation that's coming where there are 78 year old gamers. And in fact, you know, in a way, there's that already. It's just that they're playing Different games. It's not video games, but it's still some of the games that they grew up.

David Petty [00:22:06]:

And

Ryan Dunn [00:22:06]:

this was right?

David Petty [00:22:07]:

If I could just interject here for a half second. Early on, I did a lot of study around, like, what is gaming and, like, what are the stigmas involved in gaming? And and people would tell me things like, I don't understand Twitch because you're just gonna go on there, and you're gonna watch other people play games. And I was like, we do that every Sunday. Like, we turn on the television, and we gather with other people, and we watch people play games.

Ryan Dunn [00:22:30]:

Totally.

David Petty [00:22:30]:

Right. Like Yeah. It's football, soccer, baseball. We watch people play games. And then the idea of people playing games, like, we've been playing solitaire for a long time. My My grandmother had a bridge club that met once a week. That wasn't a productive thing. So the idea that that there are people out there who are gamers, you know, video games definitely brings a different element to it.

David Petty [00:22:51]:

And I do think there is something to be said that video games are not as physically engaging perhaps, But there's also an ability level and an ableism that we have to address that for video games, there are far more games that are accessible then, you know, not everybody can go out and play football. But a lot of people can play video games who can't play football. So, Yeah.

Ryan Dunn [00:23:13]:

Yeah. At its basis level, I think it's just another platform on which we can build commonality with one another, which is where we root our communities. I had this moment when you're you've talked about Twitch, this really kind of this online platform where people, watch other people, in some cases, play video games. And as my son was starting to get into that, I was like, I just I just can't get into it. Like, why would you watch Somebody else play a game that you could be playing. And then, somebody else delivered this comparison for me. I grew up in the era of the coin operated arcade. And when I went to The Coin Operated Arcade, you know, I would have my $2 worth of quarters.

Ryan Dunn [00:23:52]:

And when those ran out, what did I do? I would walk around and watch my friends play video games. It was the exact same thing. And so this is just that next expression of something that I think we can all relate to and that we do relate to one another through the ways in which we play. It was an moment that I had to kind of discover the hard way. I'm sure that there's been plenty of things that you've learned the hard way through practice. As you look back now, do you wish that there was something that you could tell your younger or your less self that would have made this expression of ministry a little bit easier for you now?

David Petty [00:24:32]:

Yeah. I I think The thing I would tell myself, you know, or my initial response is like, don't do it. It's way harder than you think. But I think the thing I would have told myself was, do not expect this to be a good business. Expect this to be a great ministry. Mhmm. And I still hold to that. I think that, you know, the business model of Crossfire has not played out yet.

David Petty [00:24:57]:

Right? Sunday morning church, we've got a good business model for running an institution. We have regular donations. We understand how the money comes in. The money goes out. We've created this sustainable institution for a long time. You know? We're still figuring out what that model looks like for financial sustainability into the future. But, you know, it's the donations don't come mostly from the people who are benefiting most from the ministry. So finding people to partner with, finding organizations.

David Petty [00:25:24]:

Like, right now, we're sponsored by the Boulder, Spirit Foundation, which came out of the sale of a church CAMP and then also was kind of instrumental in helping us think through the CAMP model. But, you know, finding partners like that who are willing to say, We're gonna invest in new ways to reach youth and young people, in in new spaces even though we're not sure what the financial sustainability model looks like yet. So I I think telling my younger self to say, you know, just bear with it. It's gonna you're gonna do great ministry, but, you know, it's not gonna pay for itself.

Ryan Dunn [00:26:00]:

Yeah. And when you talk about a business model, you're not talking about, like, hey. This is my model for generating passive income, and I'm gonna retire from ministry, like, at the age of No. No. 51. Yeah. This is just talking about, like sustaining your costs and that kind of thing. Right?

David Petty [00:26:16]:

Right. Well and we talked early on. I said, you know, what it takes For any church, which is also why I've been very intentional in not calling Crossfire a church. It is a ministry. We are not a church. We also try to empower local churches, and so we make connections with local churches to say, how can you do Youth ministry. How can you do young people's ministry? How can you, empower people through the use of gaming? I don't wanna take away from the local church if people are finding community there. So we are not a church.

David Petty [00:26:46]:

We're a ministry. But, you know, what it costs a local church to pay for a full time pastor, You know, with benefits, with housing, all that kind of stuff, let alone insurance costs and everything else. I don't see an online ministry funding that, fully without a whole lot of help or, you know, 10,000 followers. You know, that's the kind of that's the kind of challenge. So, Yeah. So that's what we're talking about when I talk about business models. Like, what are the finances look like, and and how is this sustainable? And and in my mind, the only way so far for us that it's sustainable I know, Other people are kind of teasing out what that model might look like for online ministries. But for us so far, the only way that it's sustainable is that it's Part of my calling as a as a pastor, and it's not my full time job.

Ryan Dunn [00:27:35]:

Mhmm. Yeah. Yeah. You know, Again, it it goes back to the comparison with youth ministry, however. Not to say that that a gaming ministry is a youth ministry, but that, a youth ministry in itself is not sustainable, right, in terms of of money. Like, those students are not given the money that sustains the youth ministry. It from elsewhere.

David Petty [00:27:56]:

Usually. Yeah.

Ryan Dunn [00:27:57]:

It's a missional expression of the the faith community. And so do you see it, is is kind of that kind of extension of ministry?

David Petty [00:28:06]:

Right. I think you look at a number of different ministries. I mean, you look at at, urban ministry. You look at homeless ministry. You look at youth ministry. You know, all sorts of those ministries are not sustainable in and of themselves. You know, like you said, If I'm doing ministry with the homeless, the homeless are not paying for the ministry that I'm providing to them. Totally.

David Petty [00:28:25]:

So instead, I need to find partners. I need to find stakeholders. I need to find Investors who are willing to say, this is valuable work, and reaching these people with the message and love of Christ is valuable.

Ryan Dunn [00:28:36]:

We've talked about where you've been, what you're doing now. What are you dreaming of doing next?

David Petty [00:28:42]:

Yeah. I mean, I think we've talked about, really that summer camp model into multiple places, into multiple weeks. We've also talked about trying to engage a little bit more on the West Coast. So that's another possibility. But, really, I think we found a good groove, and I would say the you know, Go back to the phrase of the only difference between a groove and a rut is how long you've been in it. But, you know, we've found a good groove in what we're doing right now. And so I think Just trying to find new ways to reach people and trying to stay in connection with people and figure out what it is that people need in their own spiritual development, And how do we empower them for that work? Right?

Ryan Dunn [00:29:25]:

Cool. All right. Well, Again, where can, people find out more about the ministry?

David Petty [00:29:31]:

Yeah. So, the easiest thing to remember is church for gamers, which again, I didn't. We're not a church, but it's a good URL. Church for gamers, that's church, f o r, gamers, .com. You can also find crossfire cast dotcom, crossfirepodcast.com. That'll that'll get you to all of our different links to our podcast, to our Twitch stream, To our Discord channel, all of that kind of stuff. And the Discord is easy because it's just discord.churchforgamers.com, And that'll get you to us as well. So, yeah.

David Petty [00:30:04]:

And and I will say, you know, one of the things I see Nathan Webb here in the chat. You know, he mentioned another 24 hour stream. That's been one of the great things too that we've done in the past, that I didn't even mention here was we've collaborated in the past with, Checkpoint Church, which what Nathan Webb runs, Methodist Gaming, which is out of Virginia, I believe. And, you know, with them, we raised $3,000, last Year in January, I believe this was gosh. Maybe it's 2 years ago now. But we did a 24 hour livestream, raised $3,000 for, Umcore. And so, you

Ryan Dunn [00:30:39]:

know, it's

David Petty [00:30:39]:

through those Twitch outreach things. We can also do a a lot of good in fundraising for those kind of ministries.

Ryan Dunn [00:30:46]:

Man, I was gonna suggest now that we have this United Methodist podcastathon going on, like, hey. Let's look at United Methodist Gameathon, but it sounds like y'all have already done that.

David Petty [00:30:57]:

We have in a ways. You know? But but I also you know, I I think any anytime that we can help the word out there about any of these ministries that are going on. I think the opportunity for people who haven't heard about it yet and who will find community and connection in one of these places, that's huge. You know? And and right now, we struggle, I think, as methodists because we are not Generally, I'm gonna make a generalization here. We're not generally an evangelistic type. We're not out there knocking on doors. We're not out there handing out pamphlets, but this kind of ministry requires some evangelism to get out there and spread the word. So, so we've gotta kind of relearn what healthy evangelism looks like And spread the word so that people can get engaged.

Ryan Dunn [00:31:43]:

Yeah. Okay. Well, man, I was ready to close-up, but you you just might have opened a can of worms here. So but we'll try to make this last question concise then. So how do you characterize then evangelism in a digital gaming space?

David Petty [00:31:58]:

Yeah. So I think, to me let me start with with characterizing evangelism in general. To me, evangelism is about Helping people who want to connect to find ease in connecting. And I'll make a connection here when it comes to, Sales. Right? Because in some ways, there's parallels with sales. And often people think of sales as trying to push a product on somebody else so that they'll buy it no matter what. And the best sales tactic is not necessarily to push a product on somebody else that they don't want, but instead to say, what is it that you need, and do I have something I can offer that helps meet that need. And so I think from an evangelism standpoint, we ask the same questions to say, you know, what is it that you need out of the church right now? Is it connection? Is it spiritual development? Is it is it just knowing that there's a building where you can feel safe on a weekly basis for 1 hour? For young parents, is it childcare? I know a whole lot of people for whom the church's main ministry is that it provides childcare, so they've got a couple hours a week to kind of Take a breath away from being, you know, having needs that they're addressing all the time for their children.

David Petty [00:33:09]:

So whatever that need is, I think the church and online ministries can say, what is it that you need, and how can we help?

Ryan Dunn [00:33:16]:

Cool. You know, And you use that advertising comparison, and it it's not always about money. For people who have listened to this podcast, You've probably heard me say before that when it comes to advertising and marketing, like, we're not driving towards a sale. We're driving towards the opening of a relationship. And so when we talk about advertising and marketing, like, That's the means through which we allow ourselves to be known, which in and of self is the way that we can kinda carry the good news into digital spaces, in gaming spaces, in just letting ourselves, as people of faith be known. So thanks for doing that. Thanks for, extending yourself in ministry in that way and for, well, Sharing the story of Crossfire Faith in gaming with us, David.

David Petty [00:34:01]:

Yeah. Thank you for having me on.

Ryan Dunn [00:34:03]:

Cool. Well, this has been a lot of fun. It's a wrap for pastoring in the digital parish, and this is a wrap for our week of United Methodist Podcastathon for 2023. So what's next? Well, discover resource unc.org. It's your one site to click, find, lead. Don't waste valuable time searching multiple websites. Resourceumc.org is the centralized portal that empowers leaders, whether lay or clergy, to conveniently find content created just for you, articles, tools, ideas relevant to whatever your role is. Whatever your ministry focus, you'll find everything you need at resourceumc.org.

Ryan Dunn [00:34:45]:

Of course, they have made this United Methodist Podcastathon possible, Buckle up because there are so many people to thank for this. All of our participants through the week, many of whom were streaming live for the 1st time. Thanks to Crystal Cabaniss, who I'm pointing at right over there, for all the organizational and promotional and production help. I need to thank the production crew at United Methodist Communications, including Debbie Walmsley, Dan McConnell, Stacy Haigwood for helping to make this happen. Also a big thanks to United Methodist Communications marketing and public information teams. That includes Brenda Smotherman, Andrew Schleicher, Patty Dellibovi, and everybody else there for the promotional support. Thanks to the to the creative services team for imaging this whole thing. And with that, we're finally gonna call this whole thing a wrap.

Ryan Dunn [00:35:38]:

Have a great weekend, And may God's vision for the future spread of the good news be advanced just a little bit more through your life this weekend.