VR Church After 10 Years: DJ Soto on Planting Church in the Metaverse and VRChat

DJ Soto: you know what? It'd be awesome to have a church in here. So three days later on a Sunday, we call it the VR church experience. This is Friday. And on Sunday, you're having a service. I had a graphic up and everything. I put out social media. Nobody had VR. I was three days later from the first thing I realized, oh, I can create my own space. They had like templates. I was like, oh, this is fantastic. Let's do this. So I think it was just all happening almost subconsciously, almost naturally. It wasn't like this conscious, let me plant a church in VR thing. It was just like natural experimentation expression. And then, yeah, Sunday we had, we had church service. Whether anybody showed up or not, I was going to do the service. If I was talking to nobody, I wasn't even live streaming.

DJ Soto: So I did the service as if there was a thousand people there, even though like when it started, no one was in the room. But here's the definitive moment, the light bulb moment. Right in that first service, an atheist from Denmark came in and he says, man, I don't believe in God, but I'm curious to see, you know, what this is all about. 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.

Flatcap: Welcome in. Welcome in everyone to control alt redeem. We are resetting the culture and redeeming the space. And I have DJ Soto with me today. What a privilege it is to have you in here,

DJ Soto: friend. Hey, Flatcap. Thanks for having me on your show. Excited to chat.

Flatcap: Well, I love to, you know, talk about where do people get started in different things and where did you get started in Twitch? And you also have a church that you planted. Is there a difference in how you got started with the church plant? Was it initially planned to be in Twitch or how did, let's just start with the plan for the church plant. And if that intersects with Twitch, then bring that piece into where that intersects with Twitch.

DJ Soto: Yeah. So it's hard to believe we've been church planning in the metaverse or let's just say virtual spaces for 10 years, which is like a crazy thought, right? So starting in 2016 in Microsoft's virtual reality platform. And so we were in Microsoft, AltspaceVR, and then we moved into Rec Room and then VRChat, which is like our main church now since Rec Room and AltspaceVR have disappeared. And so AltspaceVR might be coming back though. But anyways, as far as like getting into live streaming, it was, that's a natural extension. I don't think we started out with live streaming because VR and live streaming isn't very intuitive. There's a, there's always a funky thing you have to work through technically speaking. Like even today, like if I was to stream a live stream game or a VR game, there's going to be something funky that happens.

DJ Soto: So, but anyways, at some point we're like, okay, we feel comfortable enough. And some of these platforms had in world like camera tools. And so, which made it a little bit easier to live stream. So we started, we started live streaming the VR experience. And so that was kind of like a natural evolution. And so, you know, it started out with the church plant in VR and then it evolved into live streaming. So it's kind of like a one in the same now. And then, and then I do personal live streaming, you know, as a, as a gamer and content creator, which is kind of separate, but also together. It's like everything I do is kind of like intertwined. So, but yeah, so DJ Soto Live is kind of like my gaming platform.

Flatcap: Did, did you, did you start there before the church plant?

DJ Soto: No, no, I think I started streaming with VR church first. That was like my main, like just, you know, promoting the church. You know, we had a church in Rust, which is a, which is a whole other, that's a unique story in and of itself. And that was a really interesting live stream. Like that got a lot of attention, a lot of views, just hit a little viral mini virality moment on tick tock. And so we got a lot of people watching our, our Rust church. And so I think like what happened was for me, as far as the gaming side of it, so I don't know if it's okay to talk about both, but because we were living in Virginia where we planted, you know, VR church and we moved to Texas in probably 2022. And during that transition, I just started, you know, there was like some downtime, you know, with, you know, because we were living in a hotel, we're waiting for our house to, to be available.

DJ Soto: And so I just started to stream in like star citizen. It's like a space MMO and, you know, streaming the church stuff as well. But then I just got into, just got into it. There's a little community was growing there. People were watching and a little guild was formed. And so that's kind of the evolution as far as the gaming streaming side of things, how that evolved. And so that's been, that's been a fun journey to be a part of. So the whole thing has been a lot of fun, you know, ups and downs, challenges and, and triumphs like anything else. But as far as like the VR MMO church, you know, the gaming side with DJ Soto live, it's, it's been a lot of fun to explore the space.

Flatcap: Yeah. So, so why was the decision or what helped make the decision that VR was a place that needed a church? Because that is like 10 years ago. That's not what most people were thinking. I mean, this, this side of COVID, you might have a more people open to it. And I, you know, you and I have friends who are doing that and in the space, you know, you run into people when you're there. But when I go bring that up to people in a physical church, I mean, they're either like, think I'm a heretic or they think it can't be real or, you know, they can't even fathom. Like it's, it's, it's what I, what I talk about when I talk about my Hebrew or I'm sorry, my Greek professor, where I would ask him what I thought was a really serious question. And he would think I asked, why is this guy green today? He couldn't even comprehend my question. What do you mean the sky's green today?

Flatcap: The sky's not green. So that's, that's kind of what some people feel like when I talk about, yeah, I have friends who are, are, you know, planting a VR church or they've got a VR church at 10 years old. And they're like, what? So what was, what was the call that led you to, to decide a VR church was where God was calling you?

DJ Soto: Yeah. Yeah. I love, I like talking to guys like you, cause you know, right. So sometimes we do podcasts or zoom calls and people are like, what is it like, you know, this is this even theologically like, or like you kind of already, you know, waded through those waters. So it's, it's good to kind of have this conversation, but you know, I was a pastor at a, at a pretty large church. You can call it a mega church if you wanted to in the Northeast. It was a mega church for the Northeast, probably here in the South. Cause I live in Texas now. It's probably just a regular church, but yeah. In the Bible belt, probably just a regular size church. But for the Northeast, the Pennsylvania mega church, I was part of their, like I interned there. Um, this was like 2010, like live streaming, which is for 2010 live streaming was like pretty cutting edge.

DJ Soto: I mean, I didn't know that cause I came from television as far as like TV news. So I did a lot of filming and editing for a TV station in the Philly market, Philly Allentown market was more Allentown reading than Philly, but it was, I guess it was considered the Philadelphia market. So I had a lot of technological kind of like, uh, you know, uh, just skills that came into the church. And so they, when I came in, they, you know, they had the, you know, the jumbotron, the TV stuff, you know, the nice studio cams. And then I came in with like, Hey, let's put this online. And so at the mega church I was doing, you know, live streaming and helped develop some apps for them, that type of stuff. And then that evolved into being ordained with that particular denomination, which was the assembly of God. So I got ordained with the AOG at the time.

DJ Soto: And I think it was a 2014 when I came on staff as like, as a full-time pastor. So, and then I was more like technological pastor that evolved into planting a branch campus, the whole multi-site church movement. So I did their first multi-site location over there in Kutztown, Pennsylvania. So, so going through that little journey. And here's where, like, when you, when you're asking the question, what started it here, I said all that to say this, I remember pastoring that branch campus in, in Kutztown, Pennsylvania. And I remember like leaving the stage, like, you know, doing announcements or maybe even, or giving a sermon. And there is a something that was like, definitely like in turmoil internally, could not figure out what it was because everything was great. I mean, we, this, the church plan was, you know, doing really well.

DJ Soto: We were, had a ton of students coming from Kutztown University. So it was like the, you know, this branch campus was kind of, you know, launching off really well. Everything was fine. There was no conflict with staff and, you know, no, you know, with, with the congregation, but there, there's still that turmoil. And so, I remember I was back at the main campus and just kind of like reflecting on what is, what is going on here? Like I could not define it. And then I read a couple of articles that day. And then, and I feel like it was, it was like a divine intervention there where I think one was from Carey Nieuwhof and the other one was from like church leadership, talking about the apostolic gift. I have never, you know, because I got a BA in Bible from Pensacola Christian College down in Florida. You know, I've been in church ministries before that church I was talking about.

DJ Soto: Anyways, I'd never heard about the apostolic gift, maybe kind of a side thing, maybe through like, I don't know, you know, the, the pastor, the shepherd, the evangelist for sure. Yeah. The teachers. And then, but the apostolic gift is not something that I never really heard about or understood. And even with like the AOG, which is Pentecostal, which they would probably adhere to like the epistolic, even them, I think it was more of a side thing. And so realizing that there's a pioneering gift. And I think that when I read that article from Carey Nieuwhof, church leadership, and then eventually finding Alan Hirsch, who writes, who writes a lot about the five-fold gift. Yeah. And again, diving into Alan Hirsch's stuff, man, that, that tension melted immediately. I was like, and it was like an epiphany, right? I'm not a pastor. I'm actually apostolic.

DJ Soto: And so, you know, I can certainly fulfill pastoral roles, teaching shepherding, certainly. But my gifting is apostolic, which, you know, for some, if you were like me, maybe completely know what that is. But if you were like me, you know, it's pioneering. It's a spiritual pioneer. I guess you could say church planner. I think it definitely is, can be more than that. And so that led to, in 2016, stepping away from the megachurch, where everything was fine, you know, steady paycheck, you know, no conflict, you know, all that stuff. But I was like, we have to follow this. We have to follow whatever this is. Because at the time, the church I was a part of wasn't really going to go into apostolic ministry, right? Oh, right. They really just, they really just wanted me to stick

Flatcap: with... Well, yeah. If they're doing a church plant and they have their model, that's what they want. Yeah. They have their system. They have the structure. They know how they're doing it. Now, maybe down the road, they could have said, let's try something we haven't done before. But at that point, they're not looking for that. I totally get that. And the, something isn't sitting right within you. If you've not served in ministry, that is a hard thing for people to fully grasp when the, you're doing all the things that look like you're supposed to be doing, and there isn't conflict, there isn't problems, but you just are not feeling satisfied with what, you know, in your spirit of something is off and you can't put your finger on it. I love that it was an identification of who you are and how you are put together that really helped you to be able to move forward to what God was calling

DJ Soto: you into. Yeah. And looking back, because I haven't had many conversations like this to reflect, but in reflection, it's kind of a miracle that we did that shift because we were pretty fortified in the structures and systems for the good, bad, and the ugly. You know what I mean? The structures and systems of the Christian evangelical church, the AOG, the multi-site movement. So to kind of get out of that was really, I think, in reflection, a significant moment. So yeah, that tension melted, started to realize, and because like, even like before AOG, I was kind of with the Baptist and certainly no apostolic, right? That was like, you know, that wasn't their theological framework at all. AOG a little bit. And so kind of stepping into it.

DJ Soto: So, you know, I'm, I have to read Alan Hirsch because there's really no one talking about it, or at least from what I could tell, maybe other people have found that. Um, I think some people are scared about the apostolic term because when I brought it up, I guess there's some, some, a crazy aspect to it, which, which crazy, crazy isn't everything from

Flatcap: the fundamentalist to the AOG. Yeah. There's, there's, there's a group out there that if somebody is going to go listen to this and go, you know, and Google it and try to find, or use AI to find, you'll find NAR out there. And I can't remember what NAR stands for, but there's a whole group out there of apostle ship leadership model that basically act like the first century apostles, and you can't challenge them. And they have ultimate authority in your church and congregation to tell you whether you should invest, you should buy a house, you should marry, you should not marry. Yeah. So there is, of course there's a group that went and is utilizing it for their own power and, and, and, and money and that. So yeah, I'm just warning anyone.

Flatcap: If you go out there, go to Alan Hirsch for alerting about apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, teacher, go to Alan Hirsch, go to Carey Nieuwhof, go to, go to some of those people, but be aware you're going to find this other, other realm out there called NAR. And I might be new apostolic something. I can't remember exactly what it is, but yeah, they use that term and they give full authority, like Paul and Peter would, and you can't question them.

DJ Soto: Yeah. That's not, that's not high. And I guess I was schooled with in the Alan Hirsch school of thought, which is he has a very more thoughtful framework. He really likes the searches of the scripture, unpacks it. Yeah. There's, I forgot the other, Peyton Jones, I think is a good read. He's a good read about that. He's a little more accessible. Alan Hirsch is more like the high thinker. It's a really focus on what he's saying. Peyton, Peyton talks about in like Indiana Jones terms and, you know, the matrix, you know, Mike type of language. So Peyton Jones has a good one called, I think Church Zero, I think is the name of the book. So anyway, so diving into these apostolic, you know, in the realm of just pioneering, not dictating, you know, first century, you know, theology or all that. So in 2016, we thought that meant church planting.

DJ Soto: My wife and I, we thought we were going to go, you know, plant some churches. That seems to be the natural, you know, that's what we're going to do as apostles. We're going to start new churches, which I think is a thing. And then it was about the time VR came on the scene. Now, VR enthusiasts are going to say VR has been around for 20, 30, 40 years. Oh, right. But not, but not like go to Best Buy, go to Amazon and get that. That's the first time we've seen that 2016. It was a little, it was a little expensive, but, and I wasn't even going to get into VR. I'm a gamer, you know, we were techno technological technologist, but I was, I read a verge article or something, some article where it says this is legit, right? And the article that I was, the publication is usually pretty, not jaded, but they're very honest about technological advancements.

DJ Soto: And they were like, this is, this is good stuff. And I was like, Oh, okay. All right. Let me check into this. So I was like, man, this, this seems like a pioneering element. And just, uh, so we got VR. It was a bit, it's much more expensive back then to get into than it was now. Absolutely. It was a big setup. Um, but I remember putting the VR on for the first time and, and I was like blown away. It was like the Star Trek holodeck feeling where before, before it booted up, there was like grid lines everywhere. And I remember just being blown away by like grid lines, just like looking around like, what, what, this is amazing. And then of course booting up like dinosaurs and, and everything you can think of. But it was June of 2020, 2016, where the AltspaceVR app came out social VR. And I popped in there and that I was blown away. This was the first time I was in a social VR setting.

DJ Soto: The avatars were as crude and as just stick figure as possible. But I was blown away by there's people interacting. There was 3d spatial sound, you know, you know, as we're talking in a group closer, we could hear each other. You could not hear so much people behind you. And it just blew me away. The social interaction, the sense of communication community. And so that was a Friday. And I said, you know what? It'd be awesome to have a church in here. So three days later on a Sunday, we had the V we call it the VR church experience.

Flatcap: Wow. So, um, yeah, I'm sorry. Just like, just got to pause there. So this is Friday and on Sunday, you're having a service. Like I had a graphic up and everything I put on social media. Nobody had VR,

DJ Soto: by the way, like posting it to nobody. But, uh, yeah, yeah. It was three days later from the first thing I realized, Oh, I can create my own space. They had like templates, like a, like a sky apartment, a little overlooking, you know, the city I can, Oh, I can attach like graphics, like a, like a Google slides or, you know, even a video for like worship music. I was like, Oh, this is fantastic. Let's do this. Uh, yeah. And so I think it was just all happening almost subconsciously, almost naturally. It wasn't like this conscious, let me plant a church in VR thing. It was just like natural experimentation expression. And then yeah, Sunday we had, we had church service and, you know, at the time, you know, I didn't, I was trying to make ends meet driving Uber, you know, running around. So I didn't have time to prepare a sermon.

DJ Soto: So I took, you know, Life.Church had like their open network where you could take sermons from Pastor Groeschel, I think. Um, so I, yeah, I kind of signed up for their open network and got the, got some music, got the sermon, but you know, I did like a, almost like a multi-site model where I would open up as a campus pastor, right. And as a live avatar. So I did, we did the first service, right. And from, from, from, from whether anybody showed up or not, I was going to do the service. If I was talking to nobody, I wasn't even live streaming. So I did the service as if there was, you know, a thousand people there, even though like when it started, no one was in the room. I think at the end of the day, like five people popped in and popped out. And I think for any church planter, five people that popped in and popped out for your launch day would be like a devastating kind of opening day.

DJ Soto: But for me, I was really excited about it. I just thought it was incredible that five people came in, but here's the definitive moment, the light bulb moment. Right in that first service, an atheist from Denmark came in and he says, man, I don't believe in God, but I'm curious to see, you know, what this is all about. And in my, who knows how many years I've been in ministry, 20, 30 years, I told you, I don't even want to look, go back and count. Let's say 25. So, you know, 25 years of ministry, I've never had an atheist come to church outside of like Easter, Christmas to come check it out. And that first year, it was mostly atheist and agnostic. It wasn't until like 2017 where a Christian community, the Christians started to come or, you know, people who proclaimed faith in Christ started to come. So that was a really unique, special time.

DJ Soto: That was first two years because it was almost like just, just a raw conversations outside of the, I'm not saying churches, all churches like this, but there's, can be a facade of religion and theology and all that, but let's just be right. And let's go through the scripture and let's ask questions. And I found that I found a lot of atheists are, I'm not trying to dog the Catholics, but are post Catholics or used to be Catholics. And so that was like interesting and religious. And so, but a lot of them still wanted some type of connection to faith and are still interested in spirituality, even though they saying, you know, I don't believe in that. So yeah, that's how it started. I think in 2017, that was 2016 when all that happened. And then 2017, we had formed a little leadership group.

DJ Soto: And one day, one of the leaders said, you know what, this is really no different than a physical church. Like, like all the things we're doing here, like with the music, the sermon, the discipleship, like everything, all the expressions of the church are, are embodied here in VR. And so we should treat it that way. So that little, that mental shift, that little psychological shift really laid the foundation for a church planning movement in the metaverse. And I think that was very significant. You know, we've seen highs and lows, like, but it was really a really fundamental foundational moment for us to, to think that way. Now people think, you know, tell us we shouldn't think that way, but you know, we do. It's just unavoidable for us. It's been a

Flatcap: special thing. And I love how you said for you, having five people pop in was like, this is possible. This is valid. Having an atheist show up, like you're a hundred percent right. Atheists are not walking through the doors of our church. They, they do not feel, at least those that I run into online, they don't feel like they would be open and welcomed. They don't feel like it's a safe place. They don't feel like they can come in and ask questions. I mean, I do see a couple of atheists that go around and visit every denomination and they're trying to explore what are the differences. And, you know, part of it, part of the thing is, is their opinion of how dumb it is, you know, but I don't remember ever in, you know, like my 25 plus years of ministry, having atheists walk through the doors of a church. It's not an open, welcoming place. They're not coming in for worship.

Flatcap: They're, they're not looking for that. You're right. Maybe Christmas and Easter, the atheist and the family gets dragged along with their family, but they're not paying any attention and they're not having conversations with you. They are, they are just lurkers who are coming in and going out. And if you got to shake their hand and got their name, that's as much as

DJ Soto: you got from them. Right. Right. Exactly. Yeah. And, and it's just been a real powerful to see that. And the experiences that we've had have been very unique. And even just like interactions with, like, I had a friend observing me. He was like, man, I want to watch you do VR church. He wasn't in VR. He was observing me, but he heard conversations like that. He was like, man, I don't think I've ever seen that in the church, the type of conversations you have because of what VR allows. All right. And so, you know, I think it's been just really unique, real special to see all, it's been a very diverse group of people, the atheists, the agnostics, the people that are like, I don't even know what, what I am, but let's check this out. Right. This is, this seems interesting.

DJ Soto: And then meeting with phenomenal leaders, like we have Pastor Lina, that's a phenomenal leader for us, Pastor Coco and just the team. And, you know, we've seen some, we've seen some ups and downs, you know, and a lot of that has to do with the technology has kind of seemed like a little bit of a lull platforms, closing sales, declining, no real, you know, proficient, profound development of like a VR experiences, like Half-Life: Alyx, Half-Life: Alyx was the last like real triple A. There's no reason to get VR. Now, with that being said, I feel like we're kind of on an upswing. We have a meta with a new set of glasses coming up, a valve or steam, the steam frame is coming up. VRChat is still popping. So in my, when I hear VR is dead, I don't think that at all. I think it hit a decline for sure.

DJ Soto: But I think we're going to be, see a big uptick because you don't know how people like steam, you know, putting the millions into, you know, creating a new headset, unless there's some research behind, you know, what's going on there. So yeah.

Flatcap: Yeah. The, that whole journey aside from, you know, what's happening in the space, you were talking about being early adopter of live streaming. I can't remember if it was 2010 or 2011 that I started live streaming church services. So yeah, it's early. Yeah. So, well, I had been, I mean, so I, I go back before you could even post long form content on YouTube. I found a site that would allow me to upload. I want to say it was an hour a week. Well, boom, that's the church service, you know? So, so back in 2006, I was already uploading services. I wish I could remember the name of the platform, but it was like, they were the only ones in the, it was like, this is a limit of time. So if you put a whole bunch of five minute videos, you're going to eat your time up. I just put one video a week and that was what I could put.

DJ Soto: Yeah. That was, that was early, early.

Flatcap: Yeah. And what's funny is like, I was having this conversation not too long ago. I was like, I do not, I'm not apostolic. I do not see myself as pioneering. I just see myself as there's a problem and I find a solution. I'm just a solution finder. So I'm not the one who says, hey, can we go do this over there? I'm looking around and saying, we have a problem. How do we fix it? And we had a bunch of people that were far away from the church where, where I was in South Dakota and we'd get people snowed in and we'd have all of this and I'm, and we had shut-ins and I'm like, rather than having to have them have a VHS or a, you know, a DVD, we can put all this online and they can go to our website and they can have it all. Like I was just, I was just solving a problem for the people that we had relationships with. I wasn't doing evangelism.

Flatcap: It really wasn't until, I don't know if you know, Pastor Brock VR, do you remember him? Yeah, I remember him. He's the one that got me over to Twitch in the first place. So he, he and I were in a local pastor group together and we would meet and he'd talk about Sunday night, putting his VR headset out and going into VR and having conversations. And he talked about, he'd love to go up to people and ask them what the meaning of life was and have a conversation with atheists and, and just do that. Yeah. And so during COVID I started watching him as like, I did not. So that was for me, the realization that digital space was a mission field. You know, I had only been using it as reaching the people we already had community with, you know, helping to foster relationships. So I saw it as a problem solver.

Flatcap: I didn't see it as a pioneering spirit, but now that I'm reflecting on stuff, yeah, I was an early adopter and a lot of things, but I wasn't like excited because of what it was. I was like, it's a solution to a problem I see.

DJ Soto: Yeah. Now that, I mean, there has to be some apostolic in you because that's like early is one thing, but early, early is another thing, right? Like, like you've expressed, but no, I think it's, I think that's like one of the things when I look back and with churches that are resistant to tech in any way is, is really kind of discouraging because it just, we just, the church generally speaking is so laggard in reaching out to reaching people. Right. And so I think part of that is like, let's say the age, like a lot of the church leaderships were birth or, you know, or birth from a universe, uh, seminary systems that probably had zero digital or virtual like education at all.

Flatcap: Like, did you have anything in, in seminary? Yeah. And you know, yeah, I had nothing, you know, I had absolutely nothing. There wasn't even, yeah, I'm trying to think. Was there even any courses at all? Maybe, maybe we got addressed, uh, something around, you know, putting video on the screen of our point that, you know, that or a quick books for making sure your church finances are in order would have been the extent of any computer conversations that we had with stuff. And it was probably more of the fact that we'd have presentations we would have to do in classes and myself and several other people would be using, you know, slides and video clips. We even made our own commercials to put in inside of our presentations to interrupt it. We would videotape commercials ahead of time. I think we were just a bunch of weirdos out there trying to have fun with, with it.

Flatcap: And, uh, like, but no, there was no training on, on how to do anything digital whatsoever, which for me is always one of the hard things is like, I am self-taught and everything. I didn't even have email when I was in college. So like, I didn't like email came out after I was out of college. Like it was, you know, there was never anything other than, boy, if I go back to middle school, we had one class where we learned coding and then it was nothing we could do with it because there was no teacher to do anything more. Like, there you go. You had six, eight weeks of coding and you don't have anything at home you can work on. You can't work on anything here, but now you know that it's exists. Great. Thanks. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I spoke, uh,

DJ Soto: I was invited to Facebook one time to speak and, uh, spoke to their like team. I forgot which team it was. And then I spoke to a group of pastors and these were like, I think handpicked from like all the, like the big well-known churches, right? North point. Is that the Stanley one? Maybe. Yeah. I can't, it was churches like that. Just the big mega ones. I think TD Jake's team was represented in there, but anyways, uh, gave a presentation of your church, you know, and side note, part of me like looks back and goes, Oh, I was a bit naive, like to the reality. I thought this is great guys. We have, we can do VR church. Now you guys want to do this. Like everybody get in on this. Right. And I guess that naivety was good. Cause I think that kind of was able to sit and not think too, too much or be discouraged by the laggard and the resistance and really the obstinance in some cases.

DJ Soto: Uh, but anyways, talking to those leaders and man, I just saw the looks like the big eyeballs and I didn't realize, and this was never the intent that this was a threat to the physical gathering. The churches are, might be resistant to this because it threatens their, their physical gathering. It's not a threat at all. It could, it could, it's a powerful ministry that can be utilized. Um, and so there, yeah, you could tell there was a little bit of like, uh, like a wonder, this is interesting. And a little bit of like, there were the questions that were coming. We're like, well, I don't know about this, you know? And so it's been, it's been tough. I remember, uh, Jay Kranda from Saddleback. I met, met up with him in California. And again, I was oblivious, a little bit naive. And he goes, DJ, you're about, you're good five, 10 years ahead of the church. And I was like, what?

DJ Soto: Because it was such a grassroots small, like I'm not even, you know what I mean? It wasn't like VR church. And, um, and I was like, what do you mean? How can this, what we're doing be five to 10 years ahead? And then come to find out that's, I think that's

Flatcap: true. Absolutely. Well, that's, you know, that's where I was saying too, is like, I don't, I don't see myself as a pioneer. I see myself as an early adopter. And I've been talking about digital ministry for the last five years with the church digital. And it's suddenly, you know, like, wait a minute, I probably am five to 10 years ahead of the physical church still, even though COVID made it seem like everyone was on board that, that, that really isn't doing digital ministry. That faded quick too. Oh yeah. But you're, but it's no different in some ways. If you got a, if you got all the churches in town together and ask them, do we need to start a new church in town? They're going to be threatened by the new church in town because it, it threatens them and where they are. It's like every time there's a new church, there's a threat to you and your people might leave and go there.

Flatcap: Perhaps the reason that VR or even digital ministry can pose that threat is anyone from anywhere can go join a digital church. So you don't even know how many are out there. Maybe there's that fear, like people, you know, years ago would just sit home and watch the televangelist and call that their church. Well, now it's moved in a different space where they can have their church in the, in the palm of their hand. They can have a phone and they don't even have to go. They can just keep church shopping for, you know, actually I just heard on another podcast that there is 250,000 hours of content from churches every Sunday, every Sunday, every Sunday, 250,000 hours of content. So you just, you know, take drop the, you know, so that's 250,000 churches are just

DJ Soto: doing a service. That's amazing. Yeah. All types, which, which I think is a, was a, can be a good thing. And you know, the reason I brought up the, uh, the Facebook pastor thing was I learned at that, at that meeting, um, I guess Barna did a research at the time. I forget what year it was, but it was like the 20, 20 things that are priorities for pastor. Like one would be discipleship, attendance, giving, you know, that down to 20 was digital virtual. Like it was down at the bottom. Yeah. We know, we talked about the, you know, the generational seminaries of, you know, coming out with the systems, like those leaders either had to adopt it or they didn't. Right. And so, but that was pre COVID. Once it was COVID hit, it went to the top, I think from what I understand with Barna. And so, which makes complete sense. And so now I saw a tweet, it was pretty funny.

DJ Soto: It said like, uh, we all made a VR, we all made fun of VR church, but look at us now talking about the, you know, some pastors. And so just COVID shifted things for sure. Like my parents, very, you know, very traditional church wouldn't touch live stream, you know, at all. Cause you know, of, of the threat all of a sudden, Hey, how do we live stream? Right. They're contacting me. So what about this live stream? I was like, oh, like you guys really, you guys want to do live stream? Great. Let's do it. And they have, and they, they found a benefit through it. Like even they do it today, because I think what, what we've known for a long time is that, you know, there's the physical gathering, which is great. This isn't an anti physical gathering movement at all, but what, you know, there's a lot of people at your church that physically just can't go.

DJ Soto: They're sick, they're traveling, chronic conditions, severe social anxiety, all these things that we've seen at VR church. And so to provide a virtual digital, a really good experience with them is so powerful. And the studies show, I don't know which they have to go back and look that when you have that, it creates a tighter bond to your church. So when you have those virtual and digital offerings, you're connecting with all the, like, you know, throughout a particular point of the week, whether it's a Facebook post or an online group or a live stream or whatever, you're having those touch points with that individual that, that like creates a really strong connection. And so when pastors are like, oh, we don't want to lose people in today's era, if you don't have virtual or digital, you will lose people. You know what I mean?

Flatcap: Yeah. Yeah. I think on some level that, you know, there will be physical churches that will always be physical only. And that's what they'll be. Or just like there's Amish churches out there. I mean, there's going to be that vein of the church. It doesn't want to move in that direction. And some people will be drawn to that. I'm not worried about that. My concern in thinking about 20 years from now is our church is going to be viable if all they are doing is trying to stay in the building. And then they're not going to reach the kids who are growing up, who digital is a big part of their life. And sure. I mean, I love getting together with people. I mean, you and I haven't been in person yet. Pastor Alina, Pastor Coco, I haven't, but I've been together with lots of people in the church digital and in Nerd Culture Ministry Summit and in REACH conference.

Flatcap: So I know lots of online people digitally and Alice in the Palace, who you know, she was in Ohio and going to a museum and she invited myself and Pastor Brock to come. And it was a five hour drive for me to go meet her and hang out for three hours at the museum and drive home five hours. And I was leaving the next day. So I was like, yeah, you know what did it? Relationship. Relationship. Because it's real investment in each other's lives. And, and the problem I see is getting people to realize digital is where you can have touch points between Sunday to Sunday. If you can just make that shift and you can just go in that direction, you can realize that real relationships happen in digital space, that they're not, they're not phony. In fact, I'm going to do this at some point.

Flatcap: I want to go through all of the book of Acts and point out every single time remote discipleship and remote relationship is being built. I mean, Paul is doing this constantly. He writes to Romans who he's never met. He writes to the Corinthians and does remote church discipline because he's not there, but church discipline needs to happen. He's doing remote church discipline. It's like Paul's ministry, all the letters we have are remote. So why, why do we think that we can't count? Yeah. It doesn't count because he's an apostle.

DJ Soto: No, I, you know, that's, I think one of the beautiful things you're talking about is like the relationship. You like, you drove five hours to go see Alice in the palace, right? And so I, after probably a little less than 10 years, the first time I met Pastor Alina, known her for 10 years, we met physically, she came down. We had an interview with PBS and we were able to hang out. And it wasn't, it wasn't like meeting her for the first time at all. Oh no, we just, we just continued like, Hey, Alina, and continued with whatever we were left off with in conversation or, you know, there was like that physical, Oh, this is what, okay. This is how tall you are. And Hey, give me a hug, you know? And after that, it was just like, you know, rattling off just like we always have been.

DJ Soto: And so I think that's one of the things like when people say you can't have real relationships in, in VR or digital relationships or discipleship, man, I just think that's so far from the truth. Um, there's such powerful relationships, powerful. I I've just seen like Alice, you know, her spiritual growth, you know, that's been done virtually.

Flatcap: I think, uh, the discipleship with her has, as spiritual growth is all been through digital

DJ Soto: relationships. Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's, I think it's powerful. And so, yeah, I wish that, you know, at large, the church would see that because to your point in 20 years from now, I don't know that there would be, you would have a meaningful ministry. I'm not saying you won't to, but I don't know that you would have a meaningful ministry to be void of digital, virtual and all those things, because the world, the world has changed. And certainly at a generational level, you know, that's going to be, it's going to be different. So, um, yeah, I kind of,

Flatcap: I agree with that assessment. Yeah. The, uh, you know, and, and again, I'm not trying to say this is the end all for everybody. It's, it's not, I mean, I, I love getting together in person. In fact, right now I'm, I'm looking to go, uh, you know, find a position in a physical church, but I'm not going to go to a physical church just to be a physical church pastor. I'm like, no, I want to help you reach everybody to do exactly what I'm proposing that 20 years from now, like I want to pioneer that into existence, that it's going to be this fully hybrid discipleship pattern of, you know, even to the point of, of I want the people in the congregation chatting with the people who are watching online. That's what I want. I want you with your phone out sitting in the pew texting and all of that.

Flatcap: I tried this, I tried this years ago, be on Twitter before, you know, I knew about Twitch and all of that. I would, I would just put tweets in the middle of my sermon and I would post those and I would ask people to comment and like ask questions of, I just did a series on this for like six, eight weeks. And I was in rural Iowa and I had a bunch of kids that were coming home after graduating college and they were coming back to the church. So I'm trying to connect with them. And I had a couple of them come up to me after as pastor, that was such a cool idea. I can't do it. Grandma's sitting in the pew next to me. I can't pull my, I can't pull my phone out at church and text. I can't, I can't do it. So loved the, loved your idea, loved your concept, but it was like, no, I can't do it with grandma sitting in the pew next to me.

Flatcap: There's no way I can hold my phone and look at grandma and we got to go to dinner after church. So it's, it's not going to work. But that experiment was still valuable. It's still, it's still taught me something. We still learn something together. It still shows the viability of connectedness. It was just not the right time or the right place for it.

DJ Soto: Yeah. I think some, you know, like noticing, I have a lot of conversations, church leaders, and there's that, there's kind of this fence that they don't want to cross to, to acknowledge that, you know, they're an online attendee can be as just as viable as a physical attendee. And I think once you do cross that, and I know it takes a lot of people time to get over that hurdle, but when you do, that really just opens up ministry because in the sky's the limit, right? There's this unlimited ways to do ministry. But before that, you're, I think it's, this is kind of a hindrance. And so it's, but you know, one step at a time. So whoever I'm talking to, you know, well, let's, can we do a Facebook page? Okay, great. Because I think very few are ready to jump into VR. Only a handful of churches have really are ready to have been ready to do that. So, but yeah. And I love that Twitter idea.

DJ Soto: I think it's fantastic because it speaks to like connection, you know, being part of the service, which VR really does really well.

Flatcap: Tremendously well. Yeah. That wasn't a place I planned to go. I didn't have VR, you know, headset and all of those things, but you know, new pastor, Coco, pastor Lena connecting with them and, you know, through pastor Brock, who was, who was doing things. And then I went to a conference and I was going there and I just posted in the discord channel for people in the conference. And I said, Hey, does anybody have an old VR headset? They're not using, you know, I'm figuring I can buy it from you, whatever. Like, I don't know if I'm going to like this or not. So somebody said, yeah, I've got a Vive three. I think it was. And so I got that from them. They're like, yeah, just have it. Like it's an old one. It's all wired and all this stuff. And, and I put it on and I did not do well in there. I got motion, like motion sickness. I got, I got motion sickness pretty quick with it.

Flatcap: I did figure out, change it from, I move around. I just need to sit in the chair and then I could operate. I could do things, but I started doing that. And then, you know, trying to help out with pastor Alina in, in Rec Room. And so I did pulpit supply over there and I start floating off into space. Like my first sermon, I am floating off into space and I'm like going like, this is not my realm. I am out. I am a fish out of water. I am floating away. Like, I just feel like it's weird to be, have an avatar and feel self-conscious about being like, like, that's not the thing you're thinking about. Like you feel self-conscious when people looking at, no, I felt self-conscious being in the avatar of, uh, being in the space. Cause this doesn't feel like me and it doesn't feel like my space and I'm not comfortable yet.

Flatcap: And yet it was, there was a need and I'm like, okay, let me, let me do pulpit supply for you. And after they, uh,

DJ Soto: you did VRChat too, I think. Yes. Yes. I did VRChat too, but I didn't float away in VRChat. I,

Flatcap: I, I stayed on the, on the platform for there, but I messed up the platform and other stuff anyway. But it's like, wow. I, I really felt like it's this is like, and everyone was so gracious. Like, yeah, that's right. You floated away. That was funny. Uh, we never had a pastor do that before. We, you know, the rapture was happening right in their midst. No, it wasn't. Yeah. It wasn't it. I think somebody ended up, uh, Phantom, Phantom mythos might've been there, had to tackle me and, and bring me back down to the ground. It's like, I found the glitch, you know, and, uh, Random one. Yeah. It's like, I can always find the, like, I do this in video games too. I will get trapped behind a wall and not get out cause there's a wall there, but you're on the side of the wall where you can't exit cause there's no building.

Flatcap: It's just a wall, like falling off cliffs and finding the little glitches where you're like, it's like, but so yeah, but I haven't thought about, so I'm just, I'm just like, you know, thinking out loud here. Um, cause I do want to move in the direction of helping a church, be able to be daily, just digital discipleship as a part of who they do or what they do. That needs to be a part of their ethos. I had not thought of, and I should have been thinking about this too, is what about VR as a separate campus for the church, not just live streaming. What about a VR campus for the church? Um, I'm trying to remember if it was Stunami that said this, or if it was Goose that had said the vision of people walking through the doors of a church and some turn left and go in the sanctuary and hear us hear the, hear the message.

Flatcap: Uh, and it's on the Red Sea and some turn right and go into room and put their VR headsets on and they all walk through the Red Sea. And it's like, yeah, I forgot about that vision until you were just talking about that. I'm like, man, would that be a, a fun thing to, to see into fruition of, uh, you know, the different, the different digital divide there, but still all part of the same church.

DJ Soto: Yeah. Like integrating and all. So it becomes like normal, right? So even grandma goes, oh, look, there's the VR service over there and they're on their phone, but they're probably on their Bible or responding to the, to the pastor. Um, yeah, I think that's, that's part of like in the next, you know, 20 years developing that digital virtual culture. And, you know, and that's one of the things, you know, talking about the, you know, virtual experiences, like that's a unique aspect of VR church where for, and it sounds grandiose, but for the first time in church history, we're experiencing these stories as if we were there, the red sea, you know, hopping on the boat where Paul and the storm wreck that was about to happen in the rain, rain's coming down. And then we walk onto the shore where the snake is right. And you're seeing that in viscerally in a very interactive, immersive way.

DJ Soto: And what I've observed, and I don't know that there's science behind this. I probably need a sociologist to come behind these, these words, but I feel like there is, is a advanced spiritual growth because of the visceral immersive spiritual experiences that people have. So again, I'm not trying to pit physical and virtual. No, I can, I can see that. Yeah. The other, but I've noticed like the, the, the, the spiritual growth of a physical church attendee with a VR church attending. And I feel like this is accelerated because of the connection, the immersion and all those. And I think there's a, a few different elements that are, that are special about our experience. But, and again, I'm not saying it's better, but like, here's one like small example.

DJ Soto: Like when, let's say someone would, was to come to VR church and they were, you know, thinking about unaliving themselves and they wanted to talk to me. That might take to build trust with me. It might take, you know, a couple months, you know, before that would actually come out in VR. We're having those conversations. The first time I'm meeting someone. Yes. Do you see what I'm saying? It's the, the anonymity of the avatar creates authenticity.

Flatcap: So even the anonymity in digital space allows that too, because I have that just being a Twitch streamer, people that will come in really quickly, having a level of trust and, and being able to do that to go back to our question. There is a, a barrier of trust to sometimes come into the physical building versus, versus online digital. There is anonymity that allows you to be able to open up because you are either hidden behind a screen name. You're hidden behind an avatar. You can immediately leave the situation at your own discretion and just boom, you're gone. You know, you don't have to physically get up and go when it's just, it's uncomfortable and everyone's watching

DJ Soto: you. You can just vanish. Yeah, no, that's a, that's a great point. Yeah. The anonymity is, is very powerful. And before VR church, I don't know that I've attributed or, you know, agreed with these statements, but pastors would say, but aren't people fake? That's a lot of the questions VR church is always framed in the negative. Okay. Fair enough. So are people, are people going to be fake? And I'm like, no, it's the opposite. I want to be careful. I say this because again, I'm not trying to pit physical and virtual, but a lot of times it's the physical that's fake because we have to project. We can't have too many bad problems, you know, coming to the church. We ever have to have ourselves, you know, somewhat together to completely be falling apart, even in church settings. I don't think, you know, is acceptable, which is it, which is a tragedy.

DJ Soto: But in VR settings, you know, there is that vulnerability because of that anonymity that, that, that, that breeds authenticity. So we're getting to the heart of the matter. So that's why I'm saying there's a, among many things, that's why there's, it feels like there's an accelerated spiritual growth here because boom, day one, you know,

Flatcap: I'm, this is, this is what's going on. Just, just, just, just reflecting on what you're saying there is it's almost as if people are wearing an avatar of the perfect Christian when they're

DJ Soto: walking through the doors of a physical church. Yes. I used to, I used to say that. I was like, they're, they're coming with an avatar, but it's right. Right. And that, and, and unfortunately, the church has, has created that avatar system. You have to like, I, you know, it's just the way the, I've heard too many stories and I've experienced it myself where you have to project a certain aspect to be accepted into the tribe. So yeah. Yeah. The avatars are physical and virtual.

Flatcap: Yeah. Well, and the other thing too, with creating digital community, there is a whole bunch that's able to continue. That's not just Sunday to Sunday. I mean, between Sundays, you, you have discord community, you have direct messages, you have other events that you're, you're doing. And yeah, the church has other events on Wednesday or whatever, but that's only a fraction of the people that are there that have access to it, that are utilizing it. And they're not building relationships often when they're doing those activities either, because you just barely make it in time because the kids are, are fighting on the way and you get there and then you got to leave because you got to get the kids in bed, you know, or you're just in the coffee group.

Flatcap: So you're only, you're, you're segregated to only being with those people who are retired because they're the only ones or, or only stay at home moms, whatever group you are, you get segregated into those groups. You're not really building out with the whole community. You're just in a small group. Whereas digitally you have a lot of crossover. Yeah. You can have your, uh, you know, your VR MMO church and you can have your, uh, yeah, your VR church. You can have your final fantasy church. You can have your rust church, but they can all be collectively together in one group and building relationships in the discord together while they may not attend the actual same service together. It's kind of the opposite of what happens in physical churches. You have two, two

DJ Soto: services. You split the church. Right. Right. And there's, there's one unique aspect too, where at least for us, like there's, there's such a decentralized attitude to the way we approach ministry. Meaning you don't have to just attend VR church. Like, you know, Alice was attending other VR churches and other people do as well, or virtual ministries or Twitch ministries, or, you know, even physical churches where like, you know, growing up and even in my adulthood, you had to lock into the one. Right. You couldn't, you couldn't help out with two or three, you know, even like spreading it out throughout the week. And so, you know, you have to be our tribe, man. And so I think that's where virtual ministries that helped the spiritual growth as well.

DJ Soto: That's another aspect of accelerated spiritual growth is because they're tapping into Flatcap stream, Jay, Jay, uh, love clan, you know, whoever, whoever else, whoever else is doing stuff. So they're, they're, their spiritual growth is being fed if we're not live and someone else is. Yeah. And they're growing, they're growing through that. So yeah. And then the second, it's that collective, collective effort, even though we may not have an official collaboration across all these ministries, but with our, with our friendship and encouragement about each other, I think creates a church in and of itself, you know, that's separate, but it is church and people are growing in significant ways through that. It may in some ways reflect more

Flatcap: on, you know, the church in Ephesus, but the church in Ephesus didn't gather in one building. It gathered in multiple house churches, but it was the church in Ephesus. So the church in Twitch is gathered in multiple communities, but we have cross-pollination between XP church, Lux digital church, VRMMO church, and, and, and, and, you know, all the other communities that are, that are there, we've got cross-pollination. So we are going, or people are going from community to community. And also I will point out, it's not just the Christians that are going from community to community. It is other people who are atheists, who, who are Muslims, who are coming in and finding a safe place to explore who is Jesus. Because there's not a lot of places to explore who is Jesus safely without people judging you. Digital is a safe place to do that.

Flatcap: So those people are also going along to the other communities and getting more from someone else because I can't be live 24/7 and I have no plans to be 24/7. I've never done a 24 hour stream. I can't imagine doing a 20, like, maybe there'll be a, say, in a situation at some point where, sure. I've done 12 at the most. That's what I was going to say. I've done 12. That's enough for me. I also have no plans to ever do a sleeping stream. So I'd have to be awake all that 24 hours, but.

DJ Soto: Yeah, right, right. Yeah. I know that's, that's like a beautiful thought. I haven't, I don't know that we've thought about it to that extent where it is like the church of Ephesus, you know, where it's this separate, but together. And, you know, at least for us, we are very, we don't hold things too tightly as far as, you know, you only got to listen to us, listen to me. It's very like, go explore. And I know some people are still like that, even digitally. But for us, it's like, man, there's, there's so much to learn beyond us. And so that's part of our culture. I think people know that. And so I think that helps with their growth as well. Because there's so many different styles and so many different ways to learn. You know, even with like when Pastor Bismick used to be a part of our church, he was like the high thinking theologian, he has a doctorate.

DJ Soto: And so he's breaking things down in ways I would never would have thought to. Right. And so, you know, you're going to have like a ministry expression that's going to be different from mine. It's going to be powerful and helpful to someone and me vice versa. And, you know, Jate, and, you know, I think it's, it all accumulates into a church of the digital church of Ephesus. And I think there's a lot of spiritual growth that happens there. So, yeah, I think it's a beautiful thing. I think it's awesome.

Flatcap: I do as well, which is, which is why I want to try to help a physical church figure out how beautiful it is and prepare their young people who are going to go in that direction to do it well and to be equipped to be the body of Christ where, when they go off to college, when they go into digital spaces, when they go wherever they are, because I don't think the church is preparing those people unless they're connected with some of us digital people.

DJ Soto: Right. And I think it's a, I'm not, I don't want to be discouraging. I see it feels like it's going

Flatcap: to be a no pill, right? Well, it's got to be the right church that's open to it. I'm not, I'm not going to just try to go into church and say, this is what you got to do. It's like, no, I'm telling you, I'm telling you up front, I have this vision. If you're like, that's too far off base, then I'm not the right pastor. Like, duh. And I'm not going to fight with you over this. It's, it's just, that's where God is leading me in that direction. And it's like, all right, I'm going to find them. And when,

DJ Soto: and when you, when you do find the right one, cause I do think they're out there, man, that's, that's just going to be such a powerful thing. Yeah. So that's going to be, yeah, that's going to be exciting to follow because I still think there's a lot of untapped potential in ministry in our current age, virtually, you know, digitally, like even like VRChat. I know that some of the platforms have scaled down or, you know, closed down. We have VRChat. Like if you were to look right now, I would guarantee that there's probably 50,000 people concurrent in VRChat. That's a crazy number. Yes. It's at any given time, there's going to be 50,000 people. That's a little city. And so, and there's like two churches, maybe there might be more than I, you know, than I'm, I'm aware of, but that two or three churches for 50,000 people, like in the physical world, we wouldn't stand for that.

DJ Soto: Like even, even with the separation of, you know, denomination, I think they would be like, Hey, we need a church plant in this city that has two churches for 50,000. I mean, kind of the same mindset. I feel like there's so much opportunity on so much untapped potential and it's sitting in the pews of these physical churches. Like, like there's, there's like 12 to 16 year olds. If I say that's exactly

Flatcap: it. Yeah. You, the church has the people sitting in the pews to help them go into digital ministry from the standpoint of building relationships, whatever, whatever, whatever flavor they want, whatever platform they want. You, you know, if it's a Facebook group, if it's a Facebook live stream, cause I know some churches do that. If it's you, like, I don't care where you're at. You, you've got the people. And if it is VR, like, why are you going to tell them? No, you got to come, you know, if you want to, you're, you're, Oh, you got VR. You're a tech person. How about you run the sound for us? No. Do the power, do the PowerPoint. Do the power. No.

DJ Soto: There is a PowerPoint. Yeah. What, you know, I, I guarantee I could step into a church, like any church and I'd say, Hey, we're going to, we're going to launch a Minecraft church and I need people to help build. Dude, we, you would have that church up in a day. Yeah. And people will be, you, you'd get the younger crowd excited about church planning and serious about and die. Cause I've seen little glimpses of that. Hey, let's, what if we did, boom, it's up, it's up and running and they're doing it. They're excited about it. So like, yeah, there's just so much in your church. Cause I understand even as like in, like a leadership, like, what do we do? How do we do it? Man, they're there and they're just sitting there ready to go. And you can invigorate a whole phase of ministry by empowering those people, throwing a few bucks at them to get a server going, you know,

Flatcap: much, there's much cheaper than a physical church plant. That's for sure. Yeah, for sure. Well, let's, let's shift a little bit and let's talk about what have been some of the struggles that you have had with going into VR ministry of developing and planting. Cause I know you've been in Rust, you've been in AltspaceVR, you've been in VR, you've been in Rec Room, Final Fantasy. I don't know if I've got every platform that you were on, but not all of those are currently running. So I know that there's been some up and down life cycle for you over the past 10 years. What have been some of those difficult moments for you?

DJ Soto: Yeah. So I think there's a many different angles to look at, right? On a 10 year journey, you're going to have some storms. I think let's just pick a few of them. One of them would be the tech, the platforms themselves, right? So AltspaceVR shutting, actually AltspaceVR did shut down and then it got bought by Microsoft. So there was this like momentum that we had as a church plant and we were growing. It was very special, very unique. And then it kind of fizzled out as it shut down and then it got bought. And so then we were back again. And so kind of dealing with platforms shutting down is, is unique because that really takes the sale out of the ministries that we have, particularly AltspaceVR was really cranking and very unique and very, lots of growth. And then, you know, AltspaceVR shut down.

DJ Soto: And, and I could see this in, in where people don't want to go to VRChat because VRChat's a different beast, right? It's a, it's a, it's the wild west of VR. As a matter of fact, if someone was new, I'd be like, Hey, I want to attend VR church. At the time I would have said, Oh yeah, don't go to VRChat first, come to AltspaceVR, a little more moderated design for moderation. But now it's a VRChat. So you have to come into the deep end of the pool. So I think that's one aspect that's been real challenging has been, you know, the platform shutting down and kind of the taking the wind out of our sails in those moments, you know, you know, raising funds has been a difficult thing, I think for all virtual and digital church churches because of the resistance of, of the church.

DJ Soto: And my wife and I've talked about that many times and there's just a resistance to it and an obstinance to it, which is unfortunate because we're not really getting funding by the church. Like, like Bible college taught me like, Hey, your church plant is going to be funded by, uh, by churches. Now it's been funded by like individuals. Right. So that's been more of the, which is the church. I suppose maybe the institutional churches. And that's been a, been a tough conversation, but not even just like financially. You can put that aside for a second. Just the relational support that I, you know, I had with a physical church. Like I attended the, you know, physical church, a pastor breakfast and this and that. We're kind of like the black sheep in ministry. It feels like just like, what is this? That's, that's not spiritual. That's not theological.

DJ Soto: So we, and I, and I've had many stories, uh, that I could bring up about that. Whereas we're just kind of like on the outskirts. So relationally has been difficult. I think, you know, economically the platforms and, you know, we've, we've faced, like I've had some, you know, COVID really took me out, you know, Alina had some health issues. And so we've, we've had some ebbs and flow with like leadership, but looking back, it's amazing to see where I, I think God always had at least one person caring. And so even if it wasn't like the best, you know, someone was caring to ministry could it pastor Coco for the longest time before Coco, I think it was me, you know, by myself.

DJ Soto: And then it was Alina, you know, there's a lot of people, Alice and coldest and, you know, all these people that have like stepped up and carry, which is looking back as a beautiful thing for the, for the ups and downs of ministry. So it's just that the human physicality, emotional, you know, ups and downs. We have over a 10 year period where it's not going to be all, you know, sailing in the skies. We're going to hit the, we're going to hit the bottom sometimes. So yeah, those, those are some of the challenges that you probably could think of some more if, you know, I don't think about them too much because I'm still, you know, trying to sail the boat. We're leaking over here, but where'd the

Flatcap: sail go? Right. But there is a, there is a level which I really appreciate about scripture because the scripture doesn't just put in all of the good stuff. If you go and you look at Egyptian history, Pharaohs didn't write about, they lost a battle. They always won. There was never anything bad, but you go and you look at the life of Abraham, man, we got all of his mistakes. I mean, we got, he's got a couple of doozies there. Uh, we got David's mistakes and we often talk about them and we got Paul's mistakes and we got Peter's mistakes. I mean, so, uh, or just, you know, the trials and the troubles that they go through. I mean, following and being loyal to God and trying to serve him and love him and love your neighbor doesn't always turn out the way we hope it would. It doesn't always end the, you know, I mean, look at Daniel.

Flatcap: I mean, he's thrown in a lion's den that, that wasn't a picnic, uh, Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego going through the fiery furnace. I mean, you know, we, we have plenty of stories and the faithfulness of the people through the difficulty. So that's why I bring it up is for anyone who's going through those difficulties to say, okay, DJ Soto and VRMMO church has gone through some struggles. They're further down the road. I can take encouragement from them coming out on the other side. So that's, that's okay. Yeah. I, I, you know,

DJ Soto: I see what you're just saying. And from, from that frame of reference. Yeah. Yeah. Hit the bottom, you know, in, in 10 years, how can you not? And so, yeah. And I think it's difficult sometimes because sometimes it's like, oh, well you pick yourself back up and sometimes you're just like one inch at a time, just like real, just trying to do the next step, one foot in front of the other type of thing. So yeah, I do think whether it's ministry and life, it could be, you know, life's going to throw a health thing at you once or a good one, once or twice in your life, finances or whatever. And so we've gone through all of those things and we are, we are still standing. And I think that there's probably a few times where you probably could have gone away, but I think that, yeah, we just, we just kept, we just kept it going. And sometimes we're just hanging on.

DJ Soto: So it hasn't been all sunshine and rainbows, you know, you know, you know, oh, look, you're going to be on a PBS documentary and you know, has that come out yet? I knew it was coming out soon. I think it's coming out this month. I haven't heard officially. I think it's supposed to be out. And so I think what's, what's that like illustration people give, like you see like the iceberg or, but you didn't see underneath it, you know, right. You know, I forgot the exact analogy, but the idea being like you see VR church, but you, but, but beneath it was, it's been a lot of blood, sweat and tears, to be honest, just like any, any ministry. I don't think we're probably unique. And I think you see that in Paul's struggle. You see that in, in church history, church planning, you know, Pentecost, Stephen's dead. You know what I mean?

DJ Soto: So this is great and terrible, you know, at the same, we're in jail now, you know, it's so, yeah, I do think for me, ministry was taught in a way that was, was going to be smooth sailing, maybe a little bit of, you know, downtime, but I don't think they really talked about the storms that you go through personally, you know, ministry and all those things. And so that was probably void in my biblical education because it, it, I guess it alludes that God's not in control and that's not true, like in those storms, you know, but, but I think if it gets bad, you know, you must be doing something wrong. And I had a church leader one time say, things are going really bad. I wonder what I'm doing wrong. I was like, I don't think, and observing them, I was like, I don't think you're doing anything wrong.

DJ Soto: I think you just need to stay the course and, and hang in there because it feels like that though. And so, yeah, so I appreciate the framing. Yeah. And so, yeah, just to encourage people that it's, it's hard sometimes it's, it's really hard and we've gone through it all and then some, and so, and we're still in it, I would say. Yeah. And, and still trying to keep the ministry going.

Flatcap: Phantom Mythos said that the series has started their three episodes in, and he was thinking that VR church was going to be one of the last episodes that's coming out. So, so if you're listening to this podcast, maybe by the time the podcast is out, if you're listening later, you're not here live, go check out the PBS documentary that's like, I'm, I'm waiting for that to come out. Cause I want to, I want to see what they did. And, and hopefully it's, it's going to be something that's going to bless people and encourage people and, and, and maybe plant the seed in two or three young people to go and start a VR church themselves. That, I mean, I, I just see God using it. That's what I see. God probably has bigger plans than that for it to do. And the thing is, because it's a PBS special, who knows, and who knows if they'll ever contact you and tell you the influence you had.

Flatcap: So I'm not looking for that. I'm just telling you, I'm trusting God that he's going to use it. So.

DJ Soto: Yeah. Yeah. That's powerful. No, I appreciate that. And yeah, there's stories that we don't hear, right. When people, the thing that we've said, or the way that we've ministered, that's going to, that's going to come back later or maybe not till the, till the next life. So.

Flatcap: Oh yeah. I mean, there's, there's plenty of those crossroads of people that came back or I went to years later and it just happened to inadvertently run into them. I wasn't looking for it. An opportunity came up, bumped into them and I had to tell them, Hey, here's what you did. And they have no clue. And if I wouldn't have run into them, then they would have never known, you know,

DJ Soto: that's like, that's like Carey Nieuwhof if I told him I was on a podcast and I told him, I was like, one of the reasons VR church is existing is because of you, like, like reading your article about the apostolic. Yeah. I was like, that was the first time I heard about it. And he wrote in a very accessible way and he was like, Whoa, you know what I mean? And so there's stuff like that, you know, that we're, we're not going to know.

Flatcap: Yeah. We're not, we're not going to know and we don't have to know, but I like to point those out so we can hang our hats on the, the moments that I don't know if I'm making an impact. I, you know, so I, you know, so whenever you can hang your hat on, no, here's one story. So I'm going to switch and go that direction. So what are two or three stories of ministry impact in people's lives that you have made a difference over the 10 years? And I know over 10 years is probably more than two to three stories, but let's, let's just start with that. Yeah. Yeah. And like you said, there's the

DJ Soto: little whisperings you hear about the impact that might not be declared. I think one of the ones that is so clear for our ministry that we've talked about is Alice in the palace, right? So when she first attended VR church, her name was a future queen of hell. Yes. And so that was her, you know, you'd see above her name. And from what I understand, Alice, correct me if I'm wrong, but she came into troll. Like, what is this church? I'm coming here to, to kind of disrupt this. You know, what I mean? And I came and did it. I think she saw the love, the spirit and just really connect with it. And before she would declare herself a Christian, she, she was volunteering future queen of hell would greet you at VR church, right? Yeah. And so she'd be a greeter, welcoming, even building. And so her transformation, you know, I think, you know, theologically would say it happened in a moment.

DJ Soto: That's true, but also it just happened over time. Right. So you just saw her transform, which I think is a beautiful thing. And she's just a wonderful person and expresses the, just the love of God and really is really connecting to people and ministers to people. And so that's like just one that's just really powerful to see. I think the other one for me is Pastor Alina. And she would tell you as well, you know, coming in, like she was like, you know, let's just use the phrase, not living for God. I know it's a kind of a strange phrase, but you know, we'll use that. And, and when she came in and was started connecting with the church and growing and then volunteering kind of the same thing, almost like with Alice had, it was very transformed, transformational for her. It was very, you know, Hey, Lena, what do you think about doing announcements?

DJ Soto: And then now she's preaching sermons and she was scared to death to give a few announcements. And then over time now she's delivering sermons and she's a, she's a shepherd's shepherd, right? When we talk about the five.

Flatcap: Oh yeah. She is, she is a shepherd. She is shepherd. Yeah. Shepherd teacher. Yeah. She's.

DJ Soto: Yeah. Yeah. And so, yeah, I think those are some powerful stories and you know, there's, there's many, and then there's this, the quick ones that we we've seen over time, but yeah. And so those are two stories that when people say you can't have discipleship, you can't grow spiritually in digital virtual spaces. I go, man, I got a couple of stories for you. How about you sit down? Let me tell you. So yeah, I think those are, those are two that come to mind.

Flatcap: Yeah, definitely. And boy, I can, I, and I have like, I don't have relationships with everyone in VR MMO church, but I do with, with both of them. And actually Alice in the palace was the first person to follow me. Oh really? Yeah. And I did meet her when she was still had future queen of hell as, as her, as her name. And it was watching pastor Brock VR and she would hang out in his stream. And he kept saying, go follow him. He's going to stream. And I'm like, no, I'm not. Why would I want to do this? This isn't, this isn't my thing. I'm just hanging out here. Cause I got nothing to do during COVID. And she went, she's like, I'm good. You're gonna. And I, she went and followed me and it took six months. But so she's, she's was following me for six months before I even moved

DJ Soto: in this direction. So future, future queen of heaven now.

Flatcap: Yeah. Yes. That's a good. Yeah. Future queen of heaven. Yeah. Although that might, that might sound a little bit like the queen of heaven from the, you're worshiping in the old Testament. There's a reference to that. So we don't want to, we don't know. Is there, yeah, there's, yeah, which, which feminists jump on to, to say that, you know, the Bible has been mansplaining things and trying to wash, whitewash that. And it's like, okay, yeah, let's, let's not go with that.

DJ Soto: Yeah. Fair enough.

Flatcap: But I love the, I love the imagery though, though, of yes, the, the, her, her, her transformation is that radical. And, and yeah, just the other thing though, we're, we're talking a little bit about being in digital space and we don't have our act cleaned up. And in the physical church, we, we have to look like we have our act cleaned up. If you're in a discord server, yeah, it's real easy to all of a sudden show that your act isn't cleaned up. And, and so to continue to see, you know, as I've been in your discord server and hang out there and see Alice's spiritual growth and how she addresses problems when she's upset about something. And now years later, how she approaches things more from a, I want to learn and understand the, rather than her defensive posture, uh, which is, which is where she was several years ago.

Flatcap: Start with defending myself and why you're wrong as opposed to love forward. Uh, so that is a great

DJ Soto: transformation there with, with like a shepherding expression that she has. Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's yeah. Beautiful. Yeah. Yeah. And for like, and like for me, like spiritual, like I've just grown spiritually, which, which is weird to say from my own church, for my own church plant, like, and not because of me and my, you know, sermon and church planning. That's just from those people. Like with pastor Lena, pastor Bismake of Alice. Like I've just grown from that and I've just become such as a stronger person and a pastor and all these things because of that. Uh, like, I think what you said was a cross-pollinization, the cross-collaboration. And, and I think, cause sometimes at least in the physical church, whether it's intended to or not, there's like, I'm the pastor. I have the spiritual, you know, the peak we, we follow my, you're the top. Right.

DJ Soto: And so for me, I don't necessarily, I don't view that that way. And so it's been spiritual growth for me has been real powerful because of the community. And so like, I've just grown so much in this environment.

Flatcap: So yeah, which is, which is virtual. Well, and I will say too, there is so much that dwelling in digital spaces with other pastors and other churches that are doing things. I get to spiritually grow. Whereas as in a physical church, everybody else's stuff is happening on Sunday. I can't sit under somebody at the same time as I'm serving others. Where in digital space, I can go just hang out and somebody else's. I can go to, I can go to North Hill live. I can go to Lux digital church. I can go to VR church. I can go hang out in other churches in my own convenience for my own spiritual growth. It's, it's been really fun to be able to do that. Cause I don't have to be a member of your church to be there. You don't have to have the expectations of I'm going to be, you know, why are you here? What are you, you're trying to do sheep steal or undermine me or whatever.

Flatcap: Like I'm no, I'm no threat to show up in a digital church. So there's, there's, that's, it's a really fun aspect that, yeah, you talk about being able to grow as you're leading, but also, also be able to grow if you're able to access others who are, who are in the space.

DJ Soto: Yeah, no, that's, that's true for me. Yeah. I've, I've, I've seen that growth be for me personally. And I only, I only think it helps people, you know, when we, when we talk about Alice, like, you know, experiencing the different, you know, ministries and even physical ministries and, and so I wish that, and you know, there's still some like lines drawn even virtually speaking, not necessarily by us, but others. But yeah, I wish there was that across physical and virtual, more of that cross collaboration. Jesus says they will know you're my disciples by your love for one another. Right. So there's the walls that are dividing us. But I feel like if we were more unified, then people would see that love and there would be spiritual growth and there'd be spiritual converts. And I think that that's only, I'd be, I think it'd be very powerful.

DJ Soto: And we've seen like versions of that even in the VR space. And so, but it's, it's tough humans being what they are, you know, territorial, tribal. And so it's, it's tough, but I don't think it's hopeless. And I think that there's a lot of hope for the future, particularly with the next gen, the next gen fusing with virtual

Flatcap: VR, digital, Twitch, all that. Yeah. I think they're good. I can't wait to see what they do there. They are from, from my exposure to gen alpha. They are so much spiritually minded. They are so much, you know, I will say love your neighbors yourself minded that I didn't grow up with that. Like, no, you were going to get stomped on if you were loving your neighbor. Like you were going to get, we got some hard lines. You got some hard lines. We're not, we're not doing that. Yeah. Jesus said that, but you know, no, we're, we're taking care of our own. You know, that's, that's, that's what I grew up with in school. So it's like, okay, I love seeing where their heart is and can't wait to see what they do for the kingdom.

DJ Soto: Yeah. Rick Warren said, you know, the best churches are yet to come. And so when it comes to like VR, digital, virtual, Twitch, all that, they're, yeah, that's going to be incredible. Yeah. Like we're just the precursors. Perhaps we are the bridge, perhaps we're setting the tone or whatever, but whatever's coming after us is going to be nuts in a good, in a good way.

Flatcap: So yeah, it's exciting. Gil dares did have a question a little bit back when we, when you were talking about baptism, how do you do baptism in VR? And before you answer, I'm sure you'll agree with me. We're not trying to solve everybody's theology about how to do sacraments digitally, whether it's VR or otherwise, how do you baptize? How do you, how do you do communion? You need to figure that out with your own denomination and with all of those answers. So the church, the church digital doesn't have a specific answer. So I'm just inviting you to give, what does VRMMO church go? You don't have to solve it for everybody, but just so that people might understand what is it that you utilize for your ministry.

DJ Soto: Yeah. Yeah. We haven't talked about baptism in a long time. That's a great conversation because, you know, fundamentally, like I grew up in a theological system that said this was symbolic, like baptism was not a literal thing. Like the water wasn't washing, literally washing away your sins. If you didn't get the water, your sins weren't washed away. You're in trouble. Right. So in which I adhere to, I adhere, I adhere to the symbolism. I'm not hating on maybe people who view it more literal, but symbolism is the way that I was taught. So interestingly enough, when it came to VR baptism, when that topic came up, you know, I was like, yeah, this is symbolic. Right. And then people are like, well, no, it's not symbolic anymore, even though they're on the symbolic side. But anyways, I get up in the weeds there.

DJ Soto: What happened was as we were just, you know, evolving as a ministry, you know, the gathering, you know, shepherding, all these different things, the natural conversation that came up was what about baptisms? So, you know, very quickly came to the conclusion that, you know, as since for us, it's symbolic, then we can express this sacrament. We can express baptism with virtual water. So one of the first baptisms was Pastor Alina. Right. And we were in all space. There was a swimming pool. She went under the water and her eyes, it felt very real. You know, she went under the water and she came back up to signify the death and new life. And it was a beautiful service. And there's, we have a couple of videos on YouTube that she talks about it and she's very emotional and crying.

DJ Soto: And so I think for me, that's a beautiful way to connect with people that who may not physically be able to, you know, get into water. Like she's going to have some temperature reactions. You know, she has to be in a very controlled environment. So people who physically can't get into the water, I think severe social anxiety, there's a big list of people that would love to get baptized physically at a church, but can't. And so this provides them an opportunity to do so, to express that. And not in a second rate type of way, second rate spirituality. It just as viable and expressive as someone who did it at a church physically. So there's a lot of conversations around that and there's a lot of nuance too. Right. And so I like to kind of go back and forth with my, some of my pastor friends who talk about it, the physical church. And so some are pretty hard line, you know what I mean?

DJ Soto: Like they would not even do like someone bedridden, some type of water, even sprinkling or like, no, they have to come and get in and go down. So there's some hard lines. I'm like, dude, like, I don't think God is like, yeah, I've known to put

Flatcap: that line down. Yeah. I've known some hard line that if you were in somebody else's baptismal,

DJ Soto: it didn't count. Only our churches count. Yeah. That didn't count thing was, was, I forgot about that. That's the conversation. Like that doesn't count. And so then I get into it. All right, what counts, you know what I mean? Because what, because what's a public declaration of faith? So one of my friends, a big mega church, they did a baptism with a guy in the UK and they found a pastor to baptize him in a swimming pool. I was like, nobody was there though. What public declaration was made? And so I don't, I'm not hating on that guy's baptism. He got baptized, but I'm just taking to account the strictness of which, you know, people are trying to apply baptism and holding it to them and, and just trying to lighten the, the grip. So, yeah. But yeah, I think people, you know, are going to disagree.

DJ Soto: And I like what you said, you know, they, they have to find their own through their denomination. Right. Yeah. And you know, whatever that might be with you, you talk about

Flatcap: it being a symbol. Well, within my denomination, we talk about it being a sign and a seal and a symbol. So it is, it is all three of those things. So, you know, and I can go through all that, but it doesn't matter. It's like, it's something you could point to. It is something that you reflect back on, but I love most of all, what you were describing is the experience for pastor Alina. To me, there is the validation of the reality of that, of that baptism is the connection that she has with Christ, that she is pointing back to that event, able to recall and remember her baptism because that is her initiation into the kingdom of God. It is her, I am the daughter of the king. Here's the thing that is my right to be a child and claim all of that. Like it's all wrapped up in there. It is within her mind. She experienced it. Who am I to say she didn't, you know?

Flatcap: So for me, there is the validation of, of it being really true is that for her, it is all of those things. And she expresses it with tears when she recalls to mind, all of that happened, which frankly should be where all of us are when we're thinking about it is, wow, we are in the kingdom of God. We are co-heirs with Jesus. We have been marked as Christ owned by this event in our life.

DJ Soto: Right. So for, yeah, I think you've expanded it for me as well. Like not just the symbolism, the spirit of it. Right. Yeah. And so, um, I heard like someone from Moody Bible, I think it was Jay Armstrong. He was a professor. We were talking about it and he was like, they do battlefield baptisms. Like there's no water, but you know, you know, they're doing that on the, I was like, yeah, it makes sense. Like the spirit of it is, I think what God's looking at, not the literal like line. Yeah. Don't baptize that. Don't sprinkle that person in the hospital bed. Don't do that. Yeah. I just don't see the spirit of God, you know, you know, looking at things and validating or invalidating because of a technical experience. It has to go over there in a thing and down. Right. And so I think the spirit of God is like, what's the spirit of the baptism behind someone? Is it on the battlefield?

DJ Soto: Is it getting sprinkled? Are we, are we VR in what are we doing? Oh, they're expressing love and faith and transformation. They're declaring death to life. Cool. You know what I mean? Yeah. So at least in my mind, that's just the way, you know, that I view it. So.

Flatcap: Yeah. And, and in part of partly where I come from. So, you know, if, if I take and put aside, you know, like you're talking about, can you do a baptism in a hospital bed, you know, those kinds of situations. And my denomination, we, we baptize infants. So I I've had to face that with, okay, here's what we say a baptism has to be, but we have this baby that was born. The parents want the baby baptized. The baby may not live to be able to come to the church. We believe baptism should happen in front of the congregation because we make vows to one another. How do we do this in a hospital? And I am going to serve as the priest at that point. And that might be the language we don't use all the time, but I'm going to act at the priest for this family.

Flatcap: And I'm going to give them what they need in this space, regardless of what I think is right or wrong, because here's where they are now all salvation aside. You know, we're not talking about we're saving the baby and all of this because of baptism. No, they want to declare God's promises over them. You know, that's what we do in infant baptism. If you don't do that, we are proclaiming over our children, what God has promised and, you know, acts as this promises for you and for your children, who, those who are far off and those who are near. I don't want to get into that debate. If you don't just, we'll just agree to disagree. But from that standpoint, it was like, okay, we're going to do this. She ended up, you know, living. She came to church, you know. So what did we do then?

Flatcap: We did a reaffirmation in front of the congregation so we could celebrate what already happened so that we could participate. So, you know, that would have been like, you're talking about the baptized in the pool. Let's put a video of it and let's do that in front of the whole congregation to play it and let's reaffirm it and join in. Like, I think we just often get stuck in the, you have to do it one way instead of realizing to meet people where they are is to demonstrate the love of Christ to them and to be gracious to people, be merciful on the side of, okay, I think God can show us grace in this area. So let's go ahead.

DJ Soto: No, no, I believe that. I believe that's the spirit of it. Again, because I don't think God's like, you know, it's doing the rejection approval. Like if we're expressing that in sincerity and love, I don't, you know, did he, you know, he didn't fully go under, you know what I mean? The crown of his head was still above. Do we count that? Is that, you know, there's this baptism committee in heaven, angels chilling and review the tape. You know what I mean? How many people were there? One, you know, like.

Flatcap: There's one of my favorite jokes. It's good. And I, to be fair, I'll just, I'll just let you know. I grew up Baptist. So, so I, I grew up in that I'm in the reformed church, you know, so I've gone through transformation of, of where I am and learning and those kinds of things. But I love this joke and I don't, I don't tell it too often because some people get offended, but there's this Baptist and this Presbyterian who are arguing about baptism. And the Presbyterian goes to the Baptist. What if, what if I go into my waist? Is that enough? If I go into a waist, he's like, no. He goes, what if I go in up to my neck? Is, is that deep enough? He's like, no. He goes, what if I go in right up here and I don't get the top of the head? And the Baptist goes, no, you got to get the top of the head. You got to get the top of the head.

Flatcap: And the Presbyterian goes, I've been trying to tell you that for years. There you go. There you go. Isn't that true?

DJ Soto: Yeah. Yeah. You just got to get the top of the head and you're covered. That's it. You're good. You're good. You know, just a little sprinkle. Yep. That's great. That's great.

Flatcap: I don't know how much time you have. Do you have a little bit more time? Yeah, sure. Okay. Let's, let's, let's kind of turn and look to the future. What is it that you are excited about either with your own streaming or some things that VRMMO Church might be doing for the rest of the year, or even if you are looking further into the future?

DJ Soto: Yeah. Yeah. So a couple of ways to look at it. Let's start digging in. I think one of the things to think about is we have seen like a downturn, just kind of reiterate what I said in the past to kind of flow into what's next. You know, there has been a downturn in VR development. You know, I talked about, you know, Half-Life Alyx, the video game is, was the last great AAA thing. And so it, you know, that's that type of experience is what's going to drive like hardware or the VR experience. And there really hasn't been anything good. It's all been like mobile, mobile-y type games. And so I feel like it's kind of flattened out. Maybe Meta, formerly Facebook, didn't make the amount of, you know, weren't seeing the numbers or the money behind VR like they thought they would. And so I feel like there's been a downturn. Now at a gaming level, I'm kind of going to bounce between a few things.

DJ Soto: At a gaming level, there's some indie developers that are stepping up. There's some incredible indie games that are, you know, not super AAA, but real unique. So I don't, I can see development really going to start to pick up at least from an indie level. That's going to fill that void where AAA has moved on. AAA is like, we're not going to, we're not going to spend money on this. That being said, also, you know, you still have VRChat, which is a significant part of the story. 50,000 co-current people in VRChat currently, like right now, it might be 40, right? And so that's a significant number to look at. Social VR isn't dead or social virtual experiences. There's no thing to win or do in VRChat, right? As far as like in a gaming sense, you just exist and there, you know, you'll play games and win games, but it's, it's in the ecosystem of social.

DJ Soto: So that's a significant story to, to observe and look at VRChat in the context of this isn't dead. And then now I mentioned meta coming out with their new glasses real thin, you know, and then steam, the steam frame. So those things tell me at least as an observer and as a, as a user, who's been kind of bummed out by the, the, the slow movement that VR has been in that this thing ain't over at all. You can, you combine the, all that into a recipe VRChat, steam frame, you know, that, uh, this thing is, might be slowly on its way back up. I don't think it's going to like spike overnight. I think it's going to take some time. So what that means for us as a church is that the infrastructure isn't dead. We don't have to create our own hardware or software for this, right? So the infrastructure is still growing, which is really great for us. The tech is advancing smaller, cheaper, lighter.

DJ Soto: I know the steam frame is expensive, but the, at least in a technical level, it's advancing. The social VR spaces are there. All space is rumored to be coming back. It was, I don't know if they sold assets or what's going on with that, but I'm seeing little rumors and little aspects of all space coming back. So it's, it's kind of taken a dive and now I feel like it's going to be like this. And so as a church, uh, we're going to be looking very carefully in all those aspects, the hardware, the software, the indie scene, which I think is going to be the ultimate savior of VR is going to be a real powerful catalyst for what's coming. So that's kind of like the infrastructure side of it. On the ministry side of it, we developed a, what's called voyage 20. So we've been in VR ministry for 10 years. What's the next 10 years going to look like?

DJ Soto: By the way, we have no clue, but here's where, here's what we think we're going to do. It was, it was the visualization was like, you know, we, after 10 years, we, we docked a boat. It's a sailing boat at sea. We were patching up the sails. We're patching up the whole, we're kind of thinking about how things went the 10 years and we're setting sail again. And so setting sail for the next 10 years, hence voyage 20. And so among that vision is a lot of technical things, but the technical things are leading to what we believe is going to be powerful spiritual community growth. So one thing we want to do is to get a fresh new world in VRChat, a brand new world. We're looking at raising funds for that because we, the world we've been using has been like four or five years.

DJ Soto: And so we want to get something updated, something fresh that combines like a meeting room that we have, a hangout park, a formal worship setting, and one big space and really update it to where VRChat is now, technically speaking. So we're looking forward to that as a, as a space, a new Discord's coming just, just to kind of refresh the conversation, redirect systems and structures of shepherding and support and different things that we want to implement where the Discord's is kind of currently just kind of fortified. Can't really change much without disrupting things. So a fresh Discord is going to give us a fresh slate to build a new ministry on. So I think we're looking at that. One of the other things we are realigned with ministry-wise is we, and not to get into the weeds here, but we believe that there's two fundamental forms of ministry, apostolic and Pauline.

DJ Soto: Paul, or excuse me, Petron and Pauline. Peter was the apostle to the Jews and Paul was the apostle to the Gentiles. And so Peter is more like church ministry, you know, working at a church, a Christian, ministry to Christians, where the Pauline is outside the church, people who are not Christians. We were birthed in the Pauline, reaching those who are outside the church, not Christians, that expression of ministry, which looks different than the Petron. And so we got into the Petron somehow in the past, you know, couple of years, and it just kind of tangled up our ministry, slowed us down, weighed us down, took out some energy of our sails. We didn't realize it was happening. And so part of Voyage 20 is to refresh and to become Pauline again. Let's get back to our roots, right?

DJ Soto: And so I think it might upset some hardcore Christians about, you know, the direction where we're going, but that's the calling that we have. And we believe that there is, it is too, and they look a little different. And, and Peyton Jones talks about that quite a bit in his book, Church Zero. So, and I'm just giving you the short version. If you want to dive into that, Church Zero, I think is a great place to look. And so, yeah, you have all these like technical things, but it really, since our, our ministry is virtual and digital, these technical things are going to be the catalyst for what's, what we believe is going to be like growth, which is the future of ministry for us, maybe bringing back VR seminary. That's something we had started for like advanced, advancing church leadership. It's kind of a pathway that we used to have. We don't have any more.

DJ Soto: So I think what you're, at the end of the day, I said all that to say that it's probably a reinvigoration of what VR Church is for the next 10 years. Yeah. Re-imagining, reinvigorating, and restructuring. And so that's kind of where we're going. And yeah, I think we'll be, we'll be primed and ready to go for the next wave of ministry in the next 10 years, however it goes. I think we'll have the team in place, the vision in place, the experiences that we've had that have been good, bad, and ugly, and major mistakes. And all these things that we've learned now have reshaped, reformed us. And I think we're just going to have incredible laser focus and laser, and it's real powerful impact. Not necessarily saying growth. That's part of it. That's not the goal, but I think it's just going to be a very powerful ministry.

DJ Soto: And I'm not saying that from arrogance, from a point of pretentiousness, just, just seeing the team, seeing where we're realigning and feeling intuitively, that's just really going to lead us to a powerful place. So the future is really bright and we're really excited about it.

Flatcap: Yeah, I can, I can tell you're excited about it. And I, I, I love the analysis there of you started out Pauline and you somehow became Petrine and you're like, do we stay here or do we go back to being Pauline? Because it's really easy for a church, a physical church. You start out with, we're going to do a church plant and you're, you're trying to reach the neighborhood. You're trying to reach the unchurched. Suddenly you have church people and now you turn inward and you start doing. I'm turned inward. You turn inward and you start doing programs for the people who are there. Exactly. And, and so that's a really easy thing as a church plant to fall into. So I love that you're like, no, our call is to go and explore and plant the new church and go to the new space and find the new people.

Flatcap: And then we were, as we were talking earlier of the cross pollination and the other places, like the, like you're going to be a aspect of everything that's going on in digital space. If people need something you're not providing, maybe it is over there, or maybe this, uh, I can't remember what you said, the seminary thing that you have. What was the VR seminar? Maybe that's the catalyst that allows other people to go be, uh, Pauline instead of becoming Petrine. Yeah, exactly. You know, that's, that's a fascinating. So how just to, cause I, I love thinking and processing through very strategically of how do you process things? How do you start things? How do you, how do you plan them? So with the, the, uh, VR seminary, is that, uh, you know, like a two year seminary degree with how many courses, is it so many hours?

Flatcap: What is, what is the vision for it to be like, how, how might someone go from beginning to end through that? Yeah. And what I love about the VR seminary and it

DJ Soto: needs a re, you know, we talk about reinvigoration, reinvention, it's going through a reinvention, but what I love about it is that it's Pauline. So like going into, like if I said, Hey Jim, Jim becomes a Christian. You want to go to seminary and we jump, dump, jump, dump him into Hebrew class and, you know, systematic theology, like, you know, what's happening here? I, for VR seminary, it starts out like, as if you're new, right. And it takes you through like progressively step-by-step. I think a lot of the influence is going to be, you know, Alan Hirsch's stuff, as far as helping people identify their spiritual gift. I would have died to have learned that, you know, graduating from college at 21 or 22, that I was a apostolic. That would have been huge, um, in my, you know, expression of ministry. And so I think it's helping people, you know, identify their gifting.

DJ Soto: So it's not all just pastor, pastor, shepherd, shepherd, good, good ministry, by the way, but we're not all cut like that. And then the expression, expansion of all the spiritual gifts. So, uh, I think there, the, the, the course is kind of like the master of arts in like destiny theology. So the, the destiny that God has for you, the giftings of it, and then going through scripture to learn what that is, getting into some technical stuff with Hirsch's, you know, expression of ministry, and then really just kind of taking people through what we believe would be like a new Testament, uh, minister in a virtual space. So that's kind of like the, the overview, the nuts and bolts of it. And so it's going to, I don't know that there's like a, like a two-year thing. I think where this is kind of continually evolving, right?

DJ Soto: So I think it's like kind of at your own pace, but we really think we want to do it live now because before it was asynchronous. Okay. So it didn't really have like, it was kind of more like forum based and we think we really want to go live with it. So it's going to have live classes, you know, live professors, you know, that type of thing. So that's kind of where we're, we're heading to. I think it's going to have a more powerful impact for people. So, you know, it'll be in a VR space and all that. So yeah, that's kind of like the beginning. And I think it's a great course to, for someone like Alice, like to get into ministry without saying, Hey, go to such and such theological, right. And get your mask, MDiv for 70 grand. So yeah, I think it's going to be really good, really powerful.

Flatcap: Yeah. That's an interesting thought that I hadn't thought about. If you're going to seminary is the Petrine model because you're in the existing church, you're going to stay in the existing church, even though they may have focuses on church planting and, and some of those other things, it, they're really, the bulk of the training is equipping you to go into an existing church. And so it, and come out from an existing church. And even if you are a church planter, have a mother church that's sending you and be connected there. It's not really fully apostolic in the approach of what they're doing. So that that's, boy, I hadn't thought about that before. So that's a really cool, uh, realization there.

DJ Soto: No. And I don't think we knew that until, you know, I think it was just a natural expression of developing it in the, when we were in the Pauline and it just, yeah, I think it's going to be a really powerful tool. And yeah, it's a Pauline seminary. Yeah. It's a good way to put it.

Flatcap: Yeah. Yeah. Just take you and help you do what we're doing. I mean, in some ways it goes probably more back to what Paul was doing and he's bringing along Timothy and he's bringing along Titus and he is, he's doing a mentorship alongside of them and then unleashing them and letting them go, which is what Jesus did with the disciples. They come alongside of ministry as opposed to the go away and learn and come out and then go do, uh, one, one, one question here. And I don't know if you're thinking this or not, but I have been thinking about this when you're talking about the difference of doing asynchronous learning versus synchronous learning of everyone showing up at the same time. Well, you may have people starting at different points. And if you're telling them they have to wait to come in, is there a way in a structure at which you don't have to build everything upon every everything.

Flatcap: So if you miss lessons one, two, and three, you can't move into lesson four, which is how math works. You know, if you didn't get adding and subtracting, you can't get into calculus. If you don't have calculus, you can't get into, you know, whatever other levels that are higher than that. Is there a way for you to do it in such a way that if it's 12 weeks, if it's 15 weeks, you can come in at week five and we'll just roll back through again. And you'll just pick up those five lessons at the beginning you missed and be able to, I'm not saying you can, I just like, this is what a process I've been thinking about. A solution oriented. Yeah, a solution. Yeah, exactly. That's where brain goes. I found this is a problem. People want to join after I've started. I tell them, wait till the next time I do it. They don't end up doing it.

Flatcap: If I could have brought them in at week five, they would have joined. They could have got at least half of it if I could roll and build it. So you're not building on things, but every independent lesson is a lesson in and of itself that starts from a zero and takes you through one concept that you don't have to build on everything else. So I don't know, just to, just to, that's, that's definitely impossible. Cause I

DJ Soto: think, you know, you have the strict structure of a seminary, right? Even if it's online. And so I think we'll follow some aspects of that just because it's familiar with like, you know, educational, you know, rhythms, educational structures, but also there's a lot of flexibility with, you know, if you weren't able to attend, you know, seminars two and three, there's still going to be an asynchronous aspect to it. It was just purely asynchronous before, which I don't think served people. And so when we're adding the live element and the flexibility of that, there's still like, there's still going to be the VODs and the active community and whatever, you know, interactive aspects we create. So there totally could be, you know, maybe someone missed the first couple of classes, but they can jump in on the third, catch up on the material here and come in here on the

Flatcap: third. So yeah, a lot of flexibility with that. Yeah. Like I said, that was just an aside thing that, you know, with the church digital, we've run into issues and we tried to think through that. So that's where my brain is constantly going is, is there a way to have you join in the middle of it and not have to have had everything that was a precursor? Right. Yeah. You know, we were, we're going to be doing that with, well, the church digital is going to be starting the HEAR method Bible study. We're calling it scattered because everybody is scattered and we're going to gather for the Bible study, but you were all gathered from being scattered. And so that will start October 13, which I believe that's the right date. Let me just look. Yeah, it should be starting on Tuesday, 5 PM Eastern time. And we're going to go for nine weeks.

Flatcap: So every week is standalone and we're, and we're going through the HEAR method. So those that don't know, it's highlight, explain, apply, respond. And there's not a teacher who's teaching it. There is a guide who is guiding the conversation. And so we're going to actually do that on Twitch because we want to model this. We want other people to see that they can do it. We, and we want to show that discipleship can happen digitally and relationships can be built in the process. So yeah, if you show up at week three, great. We're even trying to recruit people to be in the conversation who will only show up for two or three times and, and be in the online video of us having the discussion.

Flatcap: So, so that's, yeah, like I said, so that's part of our thinking too, is how do we, we jump in, in the middle, you missed what happened before, but you show up because that's the nature of Twitch on some level is I show up in the middle of what's going on. I wasn't even here at the beginning of, of the stream, but I showed up in the middle and it's fine. I joined where we were, you know, work in progress. And I stayed till the end and then we moved on. So I'm just trying to figure out how do we apply that in other places for discipleship. And that's, that's one place we're looking at. So.

DJ Soto: Yeah. I'm a big believer on less friction, you know, trying to break down the walls. How many steps does it take to get, you know what I mean? If you put so much friction in front of people, it's going to be hard to connect, to grow all those things. And yeah, the least friction we can,

Flatcap: the better. Okay. Just wrapping it up here. Is there anything that we didn't talk about that you would just like to, to bring up or share, or just some insights that you've learned over your years

DJ Soto: in ministry? Wow. Yeah, no, I think we covered quite a bit. I mean, we went to the past, the current, and then the future. So yeah, I don't know that there's a ton to, to get, to get into other than, you know, we're just, I'm just really looking forward to the future of it. I think again, VR is not dead. It's far from, over from being dead. I'm excited about the next generation, what we're going to do. We're like, this is just a little fraction of what's, what's going to happen. And so when that happens, could be, I know like, evangelically speaking, I'm using that as a broad term. You know, we, we've been seeking revival. You know, we've been using that word and I've heard that for, for years. Right.

DJ Soto: And that, that's going to be possibly through the next generation, through virtual and digital tools, them, once they are unleashed, once we've kind of gotten out of their way, throw them a little funding, unlock their brains to the possibility of ministry. Boom. That's yeah, it's over in a good way. Like they're just going to rock ministry. It's going to be fantastic. So I'm looking forward to that. I'm looking forward to like, how can I, you know, it's 48, you know, I'm starting, you know, how can I prepare that for them? And not just prepare, like I'm engaging in it. I mean, we're real time, we're active, we're, we're setting the tone, we're setting the, we're unlocking the, or giving permission for people to, to do these things. And so, so it's not just, you know, just future. We're currently doing it. And, and how can we, you know, really empower what's coming next?

DJ Soto: Because we can also, you know, juice that up, you know, put some flame, the fire was a fan to the flame for that. So, yeah, yeah, I think that's about it. And yeah, thanks for having me on, man. I really appreciate it. Good conversation. It was great. Hit a lot of topics. That was good.

Flatcap: Yeah. Well, you know, I, I pretty much free flow a little bit. I got a framework of, you know, like you said, past, present, future, you know, that, that aspect, how'd you get started? What are some of the struggles? What are some of the joys? I love hearing those things, you know, trying to encourage and highlight what God is up to. I mean, that's, that's, that's, that's really.

DJ Soto: Yeah. Yeah. One, oops, sorry. I didn't mean to cut you off.

Flatcap: No, it's just, that's really, you know, why I think this is a valuable thing to have these conversations.

DJ Soto: Yeah. And just real quick, like, you're, you know, one thing that comes to mind is I just connected with someone who has Lou Gehrig's disease, I believe, or it might be the, another one I forget, but yeah, he's not doing well. He's in a wheelchair and I'm excited that he lives in Austin, kind of south of Austin here. And I told him, I was like, yeah, I'm going to bring you a headset and see if you experience church. Right. Because he, he has trouble physically getting to church. His wife just had surgery on her leg. And so like, they've tried to like, get to church and that's a whole ordeal. And they've tried to like, I guess Austin has a, like a handicap, like pickup, which has been helpful, but then they get to some churches and there's like, it's a maze to get to like, handicap parking, handicap access. Um, there's not really access for them.

Flatcap: And unfortunately the church doesn't have to be ADA compliant and some churches, right. The church is exempt from ADA compliance and some churches just say, well, then we won't. And the part of the reason is there's historic churches that, you know, being, you know, out east historic churches, you know, if you're in Philadelphia area, you probably would know some, like they've got these grand stairs to enter the church. How do you keep the historic structure of a church? If you've got to be ADA compliant. So that's one of the reasons I think it went in initially to not cause undue burden on these historic churches. However, some, some modern churches haven't even made any efforts to try to be compliant. I mean, I, I have often tried to do that. I mean, and you do what you can, you can't always do everything like churches, can't always retrofit an elevator.

Flatcap: You know, that just doesn't work. But, uh, one church I was at, we, we put in a lift so that people could get down to the basement because the sanctuary was upstairs. The bathrooms were downstairs. We had people who wouldn't come to church because they could not go to the bathroom upstairs. And if they needed to go to the bathroom because of the medication they were on, they would not make it if they had to go downstairs. So we, it's like, you, you have to think through some of those things. So I, I love that you're thinking about bring a VR headset to the person so they can come and join you in church service. Yeah. Yeah. And that's like, it's like

DJ Soto: current, like, and so like ministry just continues. And I think that's one of the things, like my wife is, does a great job of writing like a record or like a journal. Cause I forget little things like the one I'm telling you. And then when, and when I get on a podcast, so tell me a story of your church, uh, you know, because it's just a natural part of what we're doing and I'm not like reviewing notes. And so, so she has, she has a really detailed like journal of what we've been doing, but that's like current, like the ministry just continues in ways, I guess that's the point I'm trying to make like through Alina and through it, like everybody is continuing ways that we just don't see, or maybe don't write down or, you know, post on social media that this ministry is just very active in, in various ways.

DJ Soto: And, and maybe we do need to like, you know, post it on social media so people can see like VR churches, you know, doing stuff, you know, just like anybody else.

Flatcap: Yeah. Or you just need to be on a few more podcasts so we can get the word out about what you got is up to in your space. So I've, I've had pastor Coco on the podcast. Uh, I still need to get pastor Alina on the podcast. Uh, who knows? Maybe, maybe someday I'll get Alice on the podcast. Yeah. That'd be, that'd be something if I get her on the podcast.

DJ Soto: Pastor Coco is a great minister. She's at pastolic too. She does, she does a great job. Alina. Yeah. I got to get Alice on here. She, she has a lot to say and she's a, she's smart, smart as a tech, but I know she wants, doesn't want to get on, but if you can get her.

Flatcap: Yeah. If I can, if I can, I'll, I'll have to maybe figure out how to have her, uh, in her VR, come on and, uh, and do that. So yeah, that might be another, you know, year before I could convince her of doing that, but all right. As we, as we, uh, we wrap up. Yeah. It's, it's, uh, so great to have you on. I'm glad we were finally able to, to work this out and, and to get it together. And I like, I just really wanted to highlight 10 years. Like you have been in the trenches, you've been doing this. God has been at work. There is fruit on your branches and yeah, there's times where there's other branches that got pruned, but I am just convinced that you are one of the people that God is using to plant the seeds for the next generation who like we're talking about earlier. We don't even have any idea of what God's going to do next, but we get to be a forerunner of whatever that's going to be.

Flatcap: Yeah. Cause I love it. I love that. All right. Uh, I do like asking the guests if there is someone that we can rate out to and, and bless them. So if you have Twitch

DJ Soto: pulled up, if you want to take a look a second, pull it up here. I mean, my, the first one would be Jay. I don't know if Jade's up, up at this time. Is he? Uh, love clan. No, I do not see Jade on right now. Yeah. I don't see Jade on the church. Oh, that's us. I was like, I didn't see the full name. I just saw the church and I was like, Oh, wait about them. Okay. That's us. Um, you know, I don't see anybody. Let me check. Uh, cause I'm on my DJ. Just lost your cam. We'll see if he comes back. Oops. Uh, did I actually, you, you disappeared? I think of this. The browser keeps crashing. That's not good. Am I still here? I can

Flatcap: hear you, but can't see it. There you go. Now you're back. Okay. All right. Sorry

DJ Soto: about that. The browser tab just kept going down. Yeah. I don't see anybody on my, on my list. It's active. So yeah, whoever you think is best. Okay. Just looking who I've

Flatcap: got over here. You know, North Hill live was in here earlier. So, uh, let's go. And, uh, they're doing their Thursday worship and Bible study at Hebrews three. So we'll go over and join them. I did get to, he did a series called summer camp earlier. So I got to do a summer camp. Take one week and, uh, preach at, uh, North Hill live. So let's go and we will start the raid over there. Yep. I'm muted. So he is, he has a fascinating story. So his church inherited a church, a church building and they wanted to do a church plant rather than do a physical church plant. They took the church building and they planted a digital church.

DJ Soto: Oh yeah. Yeah. That's yeah. I love hearing those stories. Cause I feel like, you know, you don't hear that. Oh yeah. You don't have that. That's not done. Right. So they

Flatcap: rented the church to create a studio and a space to be able to do VR ministry or VR digital ministry.

DJ Soto: So yeah. So that's what I love that. And we need, we need to highlight those stories. Yeah. Yeah.

Flatcap: He was on the podcast. I don't know, probably 50 episodes ago, something like that. He was one of the early ones. Cause it's like, yeah, I want to get you on. So thank you again. Thanks everybody for hanging out. Yes, sir. Thank you. Thank you. Flatcap. If I got one of my mods in there, if you can put the, uh, I think I've got emotes for raid, but if not, we will, I got a podcast, all the full slide coming next week and all the ones coming out. So thank you for being here and, uh, have a blessed day. Take care.