Digital Parish: Building a Bible study for digital culture

Ryan Dunn [00:00:00]:
Welcome back to Pastoring in the Digital Parish, your resource and point of connection for building your digital ministry toolkit and bringing your congregation into the digital age. On this episode, we welcome back reverend Nathan Webb to discuss the innovative approach to bible study outreach being employed by Checkpoint Church. Nathan shares the inspiration behind their unique bible study curriculum, which is called Jesus Loves Nerds. It's hosted on Substack, which draws on trending video games and anime to engage the church in a fresh and really unconventional way. We're gonna get into the reasoning behind the subscription model, the delicate balance of content monetization, Dunn the practical to Dunn considerations of delivering and processing this kind of material. Speaking of subscriptions, we bring you pastoring in the digital parish free of subscription. So if you'd like to pass along a little bit of appreciation for what we do, then leave a rating and review on a podcast listening platform like Apple Podcasts, or the Spotify mobile app. Thanks a ton.

Ryan Dunn [00:01:08]:
Our guest for this session, reverend Nathan Webb, He's the founder and lead pastor of Checkpoint Church, an all digital expression of church primarily focused on nerd culture in the gaming community. This episode offers a fascinating glimpse into the creative and strategic process behind building a relevant and sustainable bible study for the digital culture. So let's get into it on pastoring in the digital parish. Back to pastoring in the digital, Parish. How goes it with your soul?

Nathan Webb [00:01:41]:
Oh, my soul is good. I am, I am one of those people. I know that this is not everybody's steez, but I love January 1st, and I love the concept of new beginnings. I'm not necessarily a resolution person, but I sure do love, having a nice clean date and slate and, calendar and All that stuff, it brings me a lot of joy. And so my my soul is filled with ideas and concepts and excitement for the future, of ministry. So That's how I'm doing. Alright.

Ryan Dunn [00:02:12]:
Well, we're gonna talk about one of those, ideas that may have been generated last year that's come into fruition. But before we get into that, What's an idea that you're playing around with for 2024?

Nathan Webb [00:02:24]:
Oh, well, we are perpetually Figuring out how to make more games. We did it our very 1st year. We made a game for, or it was our our 2nd year. We made a game for Advent, and we had so much fun putting together that visual novel. But now we're, like, ready to take it to the next level and see what we can come up with. And, it takes a lot of work to make a video game, and it takes a whole lot of work to get a team together whenever it's all volunteers who have other jobs Dunn other things going on. And so we've had this project that we pitched, probably back in 2022, And we had a crew that was like, yeah. I wanna work on this.

Nathan Webb [00:03:01]:
And then we're like, alright. How do we do it? And then we all kinda stared at each other. And, and then last year, we had somebody With a background Dunn game development come on and be like, hey. I'm ready to do this, and then life happened. And so we're here once again in 2024 talking about, like, Maybe we could make this happen. Let's see how we can scale this back and, do something exciting. But I'm a creative, and I love the opportunity to create something new and different, within the field of ministry.

Ryan Dunn [00:03:27]:
Let's talk about something that you have been a creative force in lately. You've rolled out a bible study through Checkpoint church. And it's it's done in a different kind of format. So I've, I've subscribed. I've Partaken in some of the bible studies. It's it's different than what we're kind of reared to embrace within the The church culture of the past, right, where, really when we think about bible study, we think about a classroom on a Wednesday night or a Sunday morning Dunn in a group of people. And this is Certainly set up in, in a different kind of way. Still dialing into the community, but, let's explore that bible study a little bit.

Ryan Dunn [00:04:08]:
So First, what inspired you to do what it is that you're doing?

Nathan Webb [00:04:13]:
Sure. So this is another one of those things that's online we've talked about it for years. We've played with ideas and concepts before we finally settled in on what we're calling Jesus Loves Nerds, and it's a bible study curriculum hosted on Substack. Originally, it started as a thing that we did, again, ironically for Advent, where I started putting together these nerdy sermon devotional like things based off of trending video games and anime and that kind of stuff. And we did Dunn for every weekday of the season of Advent and had a correlating, like, bible study curriculum that people could download. And it went well, but totally burned myself out doing something every single weekday, of Advent.

Ryan Dunn [00:04:55]:
Mhmm. Yeah.

Nathan Webb [00:04:55]:
So we kinda backed up And punted Dunn were online, let's let's maybe do Dunn of these devotional nerdy sermons a week. Let's try and make them higher quality. And so in our community, which is a church for nerds, We knew that we needed to be talking about these kind of things, but we weren't quite sure, what the nature of that conversation might be. So we began to play around with the idea of the video essay on YouTube. And we started to put out these video essays on, again, trending anime, video games, movies, The latest Marvel hit, whatever, was out, we would do an exegesis of that. And then also a exegesis of a scripture, We'd find themes that were, highlighted in both of them as we broke them down and analyze them. And then we'd say, isn't this interesting that these 2 things relate? Let's talk about that, and then let's wrap it up with a what does this actually mean for us today? How can we take a thing that we learned from our favorite media, A thing that we learn from scripture and take that out into our lives. So we've been doing that for, since our inception, really, since 2021.

Nathan Webb [00:05:59]:
We have been creating this content on a routine schedule pretty much every single week. We hired an editor along the way. They're really exceptional things. However, we acknowledged that, like, this is not the be all end all of of what we can do, And we're not gonna reach every single person that we want to within our own capacity. And so we started to ask, well, okay. We're creating this content. We're sending it out to people. A lot of those people are coming to Checkpoint, but a lot of those people aren't.

Nathan Webb [00:06:29]:
And so what do we do with that? What do we do with The nerds, geeks, and gamers that are still gonna be attending their churches, that are still gonna be attending the places they already are Ryan just happened to find our videos on the Internet. Dunn so we thought, what can we do to equip these people? We need some kind of bible study for them to take with them that they can do in their own small groups, they can do in their own life groups or in their own young adult groups or youth groups or whatever, and we wanted to equip them in some way, shape, or form. We started talking about a printed bible study, And then we talked about it Dunn we talked about it and we talked about it and we talked about it, and it never happened. And so finally, this was probably around fall of last year. I had been poking and exploring around Substack as a blogging platform and as a subscription platform, and I kind of realized that maybe We could tap into the Internet that we're so, intertwined with as a Digital First Church Dunn utilize this form as a means not only to do the job that we wanna do of connecting people, and sharing this material with other churches and resourcing other churches and equipping Other leaders but maybe we could also, do it weekly rather than something that would come out, you know, 1 book a year or 1 volume at a time or whatever. Instead, we could continually create a subscription model since we're already making the sermons. So that has become Our Jesus Loves Nerds substack. We're releasing bible studies every single week to be sent out to people's email inboxes, for them to take into their own spaces beyond our space to continue living into their communities that they're already

Ryan Dunn [00:08:07]:
we've talked a little bit about substack in some Previous episodes, why did you feel like it was the right platform?

Nathan Webb [00:08:14]:
I think there are probably more. I think that it's not the only one. I think Substack is It's very nice looking. I think it's very easy to work with. It has subscriptions built directly in, and this is just a little, you know, nuts and bolts for any members of the, of the team. But it's a pretty cheap domain connection, and so it's a one Dunn time cost to connect That domain, you don't have to re up every single year. You gotta pay for your domain subscription, of course. But all told, it it cost less than $100 to get a domain And to get it connected for the lifetime of that substack.

Nathan Webb [00:08:49]:
And so that Dunn and of itself was kind of like a the the price works, And it does what we needed to do, so why not to go with this plan?

Ryan Dunn [00:08:58]:
And you're using Substack for other endeavors. Correct?

Nathan Webb [00:09:03]:
Yes. Yes. So we've been using it for our personal newsletter. I've been using it for a digital ministry newsletter that I put together, and, I just I've had a good experience with it so far. I think that they're easy to work with, and online I said, I think they're it's pretty. It's just pretty. And, I I'm I'm here for A easy and straightforward platform that I don't have to fidget with every single time. Instead, I can just kinda set it and forget it and create something.

Ryan Dunn [00:09:28]:
Yeah. Well, you talked about Substack offering the possibility of subscriptions. This bible study is actually a subscription based service. I I think that parts of it are behind a paywall. And I wanted to explore that a little bit because I feel like we are moving into an age where church leaders need to embrace a role of content creator. And part of that means that we'll be looking for means of revenue that are similar to what you're doing with, putting out a bible study and then asking people to donate or Give money or even pay for, the rights to use said product or said content. So you you you grafted onto Substack because it offers that, That ability to monetize some of that content Mhmm. Have you had some pushback against the monetization of of Content, are are you finding that people are saying, well, if it weren't if it weren't for the fact that I had to donate said amount of money, I might.

Nathan Webb [00:10:34]:
So we were aware of that and kind of cognizant of that whenever we were building it. And I was super cautious about how we wanted to launch this, how we wanted to market it, how we wanted to describe what we were offering to people. And the way that I see it is that this is a way That checkpoint could potentially find sustainability, and that's important in a modern multi source income digital ministry. We kind of just have to do that online you were saying. It's We've gotta be creative. We've gotta explore the options and see what we can do. I've seen tons of, pastors or digital churches launch Patreons, Dunn they put things behind that Patreon subscription, that they might give to people as kind of online bonuses for supporting them, Or some Patreons are truly just like a, you support us. Thank you so much.

Nathan Webb [00:11:22]:
And so I I felt like the subscription model was something that had sort of already been breached. And so instead, what I wanted to wrestle with was what are we offering people Dunn, and what can we be generous with? How can we be extravagantly generous with this thing while also, hopefully, developing a relationship with the people that will use this curriculum that they might want to support what we're putting out there because this is something extra that doesn't have to exist. And so what we did is we allow for a free tier, And then we have the paid tier. So we have 2 options, and both of them will be getting content. The paid one will obviously be getting more. But with the free tier, we started we did a soft launch January 1st. And with our soft launch, we already had 4 bible studies built in for free. So right away, you had 4 to pick and choose from.

Nathan Webb [00:12:13]:
And then our game plan from this point on is once a month, You get another one out of our backlog. So we have a 100 and some odd, you know, bonus nerdy sermons that we've done over the past 3 years. So We're gonna be releasing 1 on top of the 4 paid ones that you get every single month. And I thought that this was a way That we could still be generous to people. We could still allow for people that are incapable of providing funds, to still have some measure of free content to use in their communities or in their small groups. Maybe they could put up put together a once a month small group. That's not unheard of. And then they could use our free one every single month when they meet.

Nathan Webb [00:12:53]:
But, also, I'm aware that churches have Dunn, they have budgets. Not all of them do, but there are continuing education funds. There are curriculum funds. There are things out there. There are Dollar sitting on the table, that these are people that we can't figure out necessarily how we could just write them a letter and say, would you support Checkpoint? But we can say, Hey. We've made this thing, and if you'd like to help us in some way, we'd like to offer you this thing, right back to you. And, so that's what we do. It's a pretty meager sum.

Nathan Webb [00:13:23]:
I think it's $10 a month is what we're asking, and then we'll give you a free month if you've subscribed for the whole year. But a little secret, don't tell anyone that I told you this, if you sign up for 1 month, you can certainly just go download all the old ones. Like, We're not gonna stop you, from doing that. I wouldn't advise that. But, again, I'm not I'm not, clutching pearls or trying to, pull at anybody's purses. I just think that this is a way for people to support us. And if you wanna, subscribe for 1 month after we've done a whole year of these And download 52 right away. I'm not gonna hold that against you.

Nathan Webb [00:13:58]:
I'm not gonna judge you for that.

Ryan Dunn [00:13:59]:
Pastor Nate with the cheat code for his own yeah.

Nathan Webb [00:14:02]:
Yeah. Sure. Sure. I'll give you the cheat codes, and I'll help people out. Dunn yeah. So that's something that we wanted to do was was see if we could explore this as a means of sustainability that might be replicable for other Digital First Ministry. But if nobody tries, then nobody Yeah.

Ryan Dunn [00:14:17]:
You know, at the risk of of kind of diving a little too deep onto the financial side of things, Certainly, churches everywhere are are dealing with a a sense of, scarcity when it comes to funding right now. And so a lot are asking questions about how do we produce additional revenue in in place of some of the Systems that we counted on before, which was mostly around people just kinda generously giving, whether that be an offering plates or pledges throughout the year. And a lot of churches have figured out ways to use their facilities as a means of of generating revenue. A digital church does not have Right. Right, the the facility to use. Unless, I don't know, you take a corner of your office there that you have Set up for studio space and rent that out, but but it's probably not a game changer in terms of moving the needle on finances. So, this becomes a A replicable way you use that word so easily. That is a challenging word, Nathan.

Ryan Dunn [00:15:20]:
Kudos to you. Of being able to, To generate some finances for sustainability into the future. So how has response been thus far? I mean, we're just a few weeks into the launch, but Right.

Nathan Webb [00:15:35]:
Have you seen press our soft Dunn, just kinda getting word out there to our Facebook friends and to people that we might have some connection to already. And I feel like we've had a lot of affirmation, a lot of people interested and curious about it. I've sat down with several youth leaders in particular across the Western North Carolina Conference and just said, you know, What do you think about this? Do you think the price sounds fair? What kind of content do you want to see in this, and what could actually be helpful and beneficial for you? And, I feel like we're we're hopefully putting our best foot forward as a means of, like, we are taking this seriously, And we are trying to create something that is usable and useful and helpful to other ministries out there. And so far, it's been a good response. February, we're gonna be doing our official, like, big launch. We're gonna be promoting. We're gonna you know, we're here on this podcast. We have some other podcasts Lined up that we're gonna be talking about this concept and letting people in the church world know about it.

Nathan Webb [00:16:32]:
So maybe we'll get more pushback Whenever we do promote to more of the anonymous faces and the, the usernames that we aren't familiar with. But as of right now, people have been mostly supportive of the concept. And if they have any problems, then I always invite conversation because I take this seriously. And I I want this to be a thing that is ethical, and that is beneficial. And so if if I'm falling short anywhere, then I hope any of our members of our community would call me out or, I am my peers, Mike.

Ryan Dunn [00:17:02]:
What did you say is the niche for this bible study?

Nathan Webb [00:17:06]:
Sure. So that's a part of the reason why I mentioned the cheat code. I assume That, anybody can go at any time and go to our YouTube channel. Those will never be behind a paywall. So you can go and watch, or even just go scroll through Our Checkpoint Church nerdy sermons. And you can see that over the course of a 120 plus, nerdy sermons, we run the gamut. We've got the we've got the full spectrum of like I said, we got Marvel shows for the more normal, you know, nerds out there. So we've got some real niche anime, that speak to my personal, proclivities and my loves in my life.

Nathan Webb [00:17:41]:
So we really do run quite the swath of interest. And what I think is beneficial about that is I think you're gonna be able to find something for people that the church has truly not reached before. That's kind of the niche of Checkpoint anyway is that we're reaching people that the church has genuinely never connected with. And so this offers you the the chance to, talk to that 1 kid in your youth group that's always standing in the corner wearing any Yasha T shirt. Right? Like, this is gonna be the opportunity To hang out with that kid and to get to know that kid that has never felt welcomed, that was may or may not have been me. And so that's a cool opportunity in that niche niche cessation of the thing. But that's also why I say if you want to buy, after we've got several and you do, like, a a mass look at all of the ones and just cherry pick the ones that you think are relevant to your Young adult group or your gaming group or your life group or whatever, then I have I I hold no ill will to that. I think that is a perfectly logical thing to do, but I always encourage and we have members of our our own checkpoint community that are like, yeah.

Nathan Webb [00:18:47]:
Those videos just aren't really for me. And I'm I challenge them of, like, well, maybe you should at least listen. Like, see what you think and see if you're able to get anything out of it, see what the spirit's gonna do through an anime that you've literally never heard of. Because maybe, there will be some kind of message. I mean, not every sermon is for every person either, but if we go

Ryan Dunn [00:19:05]:
every Sunday

Nathan Webb [00:19:06]:
and sit down and we listen, then we might get something we weren't

Ryan Dunn [00:19:11]:
expecting. K. Well, for the person who's listening, who Here's this and is experiencing what you experienced in your ideation process a while ago where it's like, oh, this is a great idea. Now what? What has been your process of of development? So, from the idea of, Well, where do you pull your ideas from for the bible studies themselves?

Nathan Webb [00:19:36]:
Mhmm.

Ryan Dunn [00:19:37]:
Is it just all divine inspiration?

Nathan Webb [00:19:40]:
No. It's it's trends. So, I mean, we're we're such a trendy thing that we pull from whatever current anime or video game is out. And so we wrestle with things as they happen and then do kind of the hard esegetical work of the thing, beforehand. So the truth of Our unique scenario is that we aren't really adding anything. Like, we've we've already done the work. We've already done the processing. We've already Broken everything down and built something, that exists.

Nathan Webb [00:20:10]:
Like, our nerdy sermons are stand alone features Dunn facets of our community. And so since we've done the work already, it's really just going back to it and throwing in a little bit of elbow grease to get it to look a little bit different. And, a lot of that has been fueled ministry by AI Dunn by wisely tuning a a GPT that will be able to draw out Themes and words and questions, and then I go over them with a fine tooth comb and say yes, yes, no, yes, no, yes, yes, and then we figure it out from there. And so it's able to create something that already exists. Like, I'm doing the work. GPT is helping on the back end. I go over it again, Show it to some of our leaders, and if they say, yeah, this looks good, then we send it ahead. So the processing itself, has already been Dunn, And it's already a part of a lengthy sermon writing process that we've crafted.

Ryan Dunn [00:21:00]:
K. Alright. So then from there on the practical end, what do you do with the material that you generate? What does the actual processing and well, I guess, delivering the content, what does that process look like?

Nathan Webb [00:21:14]:
Sure. So like I said, we deliver it on a weekly basis through Substack, and we we took some time with some of the youth leaders in our conference and wrestled with, like what what actual deliverables do we need here? What are the things that people are looking for? What, what what would help you the most? And so the first thing that they said was some kind of explanation of what in the world's going on. And so the very first article that we wrote, that is that is available to everyone is a Dunn zero one guide of what even is this thing. How do you use our curriculum in the 1st place? And so we wanted to make sure we had some kind of very, brief FAQ for people to just go to, look at, understand a little bit of what was going on. So that's something that I would recommend to anybody else is, like, be clear about what this thing is, assume that somebody is going to be sent, one of these bible studies for the 1st time and have no idea what they're looking at Dunn then have a place for them to go to read kind of a what is blank, just like with a website with an about section. But then what we actually contribute to each one is, what they said Was assumed that I'm handing this to a volunteer that is there for their 1st day of leading our youth group. So that's who I want to be able to find this worksheet accessible. And so we provide everything and as little as you want.

Nathan Webb [00:22:37]:
So We provide an opening prayer. If you don't wanna use our opening prayer, then we even suggest some themes to include in your prayer. You come up with the prayer. This is an idea of a good way to open it. We provide some icebreaker questions to just kind of, on a on a light level, Bring people in. We include a link to the video. So assuming that they're, using this digitally and not printing it out, they have access to the video. Assuming they don't have access to video and they did just print it out, we also provide a brief transcript, of just kind of what this was about and some general themes and ideas.

Nathan Webb [00:23:12]:
Then we provide some more guided questions for people to actually work through. We provide an activity, try to do something hands on. Obviously, you know, your mileage may vary on what kind of group you're working with and whether you'd have the space to do an activity or whether this is something that We take home with you, but tangible learners, myself included, are gonna appreciate something every time that they at least have Concept or an idea or something to get the the gears turning. And then we have questions for after that Dunn then a spiritual practice for them to take home with them, And then we close with the closing prayer, and we provide that closing prayer again or just, themes around it. And then something that we wanted to throw in after the actual study itself Was for anybody that wanted it to, like maybe they were like, this is the first time I've ever heard of this anime. What's going on? I throw in some notes From myself of, like, this is what I was thinking as I was writing this. This is what this could be used for. These are ideas for this.

Nathan Webb [00:24:09]:
I always try to include content warnings in this section as well. So if it's something that is particularly adult, hey. This might not be one for your middle schoolers. Right? Like, this might be one that if your middle schoolers are watching this anime or playing this game, then you might need to have a conversation about that. Right? Like, I'll try and throw that in as well. And then it's something that I started doing is, some helpful, like, nerdy terms. Because if you watch my videos, I create them with the assumption of at least a base level of nerd knowledge, but that's Not always true. We may have people that come in that have no idea what Isekai is when they hear anime, and they're like, what are you talking about? So I'll provide A real basic definition of what that actually comes from, and then everything that we have is super searchable.

Nathan Webb [00:24:52]:
So I include a list of theological themes and And a list of motifs from the actual game or, show, and that is searchable on our website. So if you know your lectionary passage Dunn you type in your lectionary passage into the, into the the, you know, search bar, then you'll find every sermon we've ever done that has used that exact passage. And you can go back and look at those and source from those based off of whatever your routine or schedule might be. The bigger that this website gets, the more likely it is that we'll have overlapping themes. So you could plan, hey. We're gonna do a month of Jesus Loves Nerds. We're gonna buy a Buy a subscription for 1 month, and we're gonna do only things that are around love. And we're gonna do a month of love for February with with, Jesus Loves Nerds.

Nathan Webb [00:25:39]:
And we'll source that, we'll pull those, and we'll talk about them. So it's just trying to make it as accessible as possible In the deliverables that we in the deliverables that we create. We are also working on providing digital copies for people to print, so, like, PDFs beyond the substack that people can then just download and print out. That's still a little bit in development. Depending on when you're hearing this, we may have already implemented it, or it may still be experimental. But that's something that we're looking into and talking about, And we're thinking about providing those separately. So if you pay for a subscription, you would get them automatically. If you don't pay for a subscription, You can also go buy them, just kind of, a la carte, if you will.

Nathan Webb [00:26:25]:
After the fact, if you have one that you particularly enjoy, you can go to our, merch store, which is Rep the Checkpoint. You can go there, and you can download just 1 at a time, for whatever it would cost for 1 Sunday. Okay. Cool.

Ryan Dunn [00:26:38]:
Yeah. And that's a system that I think most people are familiar with when it comes to consuming or purchasing their their bible study Right. Material. Well, Just a few weeks into into implementation, have you, at this point, heard any kind of feedback from people who are using the study? I I'm really curious about if you've heard from any any youth groups or Yeah. Or ongoing classes that have have put it into practice.

Nathan Webb [00:27:05]:
So far, it's just affirmation of the thing. So I'll be interested, to hear that it's actually being used or How it's being used by groups or some success stories of connections made, I would I would be elated to hear that any of that is My true dream with this is that we have, some group that's completely outside of the church. I would love to hear that a group that meets, like, every Sunday night for D Dunn D started meeting 30 minutes before D and D To do the bible study, and then they get started with their session. Like, that would absolutely make me just, like, lift off the ground with joy. And so to hear that that kind of thing happens and to hear that they're, like, gaining groups or or just groups of friends that are getting together and doing this kind of stuff, that would really, rock my world personally, but I'm hopeful that we're at least able to make some important connections with some youth groups that would be willing to Talk to us more or some young adult groups that are willing to give us some feedback on, hey. We tried it. Here's where it worked. Here's where it didn't, and then we can kind of shape that and continue that going forward.

Nathan Webb [00:28:08]:
So I welcome comments. I welcome feedback Dunn and, anything that we can do to make it better implemented. I want this to be a useful resource.

Ryan Dunn [00:28:15]:
Well, for people who wanna go check out more, do they go to Substack, Or is going to the Checkpoint Church website, the best place.

Nathan Webb [00:28:21]:
Nerds.com. So that is what our substack is called. That's the website, we're using. No word on if that will remain, you know, forever just under checkpoint or if it could become like a nonprofit y thing that we do on the side. We haven't talked about it. But That's kind of our concept as we didn't want people to go to Checkpoint Church to download a curriculum. Instead, this is something we're putting out there, that we believe is for more than just our community. And so that would be the best place to go to get access to that.

Nathan Webb [00:28:48]:
Ww.jesuslovesner and congrats That's

Ryan Dunn [00:28:50]:
on getting that URL. I can't believe that wasn't taken.

Nathan Webb [00:28:53]:
It's crazy. I've you know, we got a couple ideas of names that we should call it, and this was one that just stood above. We were like, Straightforward to the point. Let's see if they got it, and they sure did.

Ryan Dunn [00:29:03]:
Yeah. Oh, that's like divine providence right there. There's your blessing. Seriously. God has imprinted, go forth now and create. Yes. Cool. Well, Nathan, thanks once again for jumping on the podcast and for sharing your experiences with us.

Ryan Dunn [00:29:19]:
Love hearing about the, ongoing developments of Checkpoint and, well, everything that you're doing in digital land.

Nathan Webb [00:29:26]:
I appreciate you having having me on. I'm an avid listener. I don't miss an episode. So always glad to to be back on and be able to Be a part of this community of of digital ministers that are contributing towards

Ryan Dunn [00:29:41]:
part of our digital dive into online ministry. A great follow-up to this session would be our season 6 session called digital community building through play In gaming, another good episode related to this topic would be season five's planting digital first substack in Oikon Church. I'm Ryan Dunn. I'd like to thank resourceumc.org, the online destination for leaders throughout The United Methodist Church. They make this podcast possible. Dunn, of course, you can find more information on pastoring in the digital parish and show notes for this episode and all of our episodes At the resource UMC website, specifically, resourceumc.org/digitalparish. I'll speak to you again with a new episode next week as we're in the middle of season 8 now. In the meantime, peace to you.