Dungeons & Disciples

Tony Benda 0:19
Greetings, good day. Guten. Tag all of our listeners, which is like, what 12 of you? No, we have 23 subscribers. 23 subscribers, officially, hello and welcome back to dungeons and disciples, the part of the show where Josh comes on and sings a silly song. I'm kidding. We don't have to sing silly part

Josh Shaw 0:38
of the episode where Josh comes on and sings a silly song.

Tony Benda 0:41
My name is Tony Benda, and that was, of course, Josh Shaw D love it. And today, we are very excited, because we have a lot a lot of fun stuff. Today, we're doing a little bit of an atypical episode in the midst of our multi class, or multiple Class series. We

Josh Shaw 1:03
can talk about multi classing. Sometimes we

Tony Benda 1:05
can. I'm sure we will be so cool. That would be fun. We'll have to bring this individual back on again based off of his fireball dash x, using three attack Correct. Am I allowed to start? You can start. Oh, by the way, this is Steven Kachur. Welcome to the booth. Thank you guys. Welcome to the show. Welcome back

Stephen Kachur 1:26
to the show. I appreciate you guys. Let me back on. I'm actually excited.

Tony Benda 1:30
I was hesitant at first, but what?

For good reason? I'm just kidding.

Josh Shaw 1:38
No, Steve, it's great. I'm actually excited because we have talked about this for quite a long time, like when we started this podcast, which, weirdly enough, Tony, next month will be one year. Oh, I'll try not to cry. It'll, I mean, that's it, the one year. I mean, 2400 downloads, almost 20 different countries, one year. This is insane. It is insane. That is insane. But we've talked about this for a long time about how we wanted to promote other people's content, ideas, fun things that they do for the D and D community. And now we finally get to do it. A dream come true. It's a blast. It is a blast. Glad to be doing it. So the reason we're taking time to do this episode in the midst of others, as Tony was talking about, is because Steven here has partake. Or what's what part? What am I last part took it has part took it has part took us in a started on his own quest of his own, yes, and we want to know about it. We want you to tell our listeners. We want you to tell everybody that listens so and the purpose that we're doing this is because and this is for all of our listeners out there, for you as well. We want to promote you. We want to make sure that your content gets out there into the TT, RPG community, so that we can continue to be the light as Christ had us to be inside of a world that may not have fully Christ in it. And Steven, I want you to talk about that a little bit today so we can start promoting you. Yeah, we start, we

Tony Benda 3:17
start with nepotism, and then we move out from there. I No, the prerequisites are godly content, and it just so happens to be really good too. So thank you. I say that with a big smile on my face, because we like to pick on each other, so that's we do. So nepotism aside, it's actually good quality content. He's more famous than we are. I know, let's be honest, how many 1000s of views now, I'm very curious. Your YouTube analytics. We can talk more later, but

Stephen Kachur 3:52
yeah, it's, I would say it's cool. I'm very happy with where it's where, where it's gotten in few weeks. I'm very happy with, first of all, introduce what it is. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So it's so the name is quest givers guide, and it took me forever to come up with a name. I went through 10s of iterations of it and had an issue with like, like, does it roll off the tongue? Good? Does it sound good? Does it get the point across? You know, I don't want to, I don't want to sound, uh, too cheesy, but I wanted to just make sure that when you saw my page like you kind of you knew what you were there to do. So it's quest givers guide, and basically, I've set out on helping newer players and veteran players understand the game in a more simple way, with a lot of new players coming into the space, I feel like, I mean, how many times we just finished a three year campaign, and how many times did we have to look up rules why we were playing? We're like, Yeah, um, yeah, I'm not too sure about that. So I think the fact of being able to simplify different parts of the game, making it easier and. Understand in a shorter form video. So like, for example, I feel like I always get confused on the dual wielding rules. And whenever I google or like YouTube, dual wielding rules explains, like, a 12 minute videos. Like, I don't have time to watch a 12 minute video. I need like a 45 second one minute clip. Like, just break it down real quick for me. Yeah. So

Josh Shaw 5:17
you want a content where a DM or player can be on the spot, like, in the midst of a session, watch a one minute synopsis of it to get the idea of what they need to be doing. Is that correct kind

Stephen Kachur 5:29
of, yeah, I mean, not just in game, because a lot of times, even when we were in game, I didn't have time to, like, watch a video, but couldn't google something and read about it. But even just like, maybe you're on break, or maybe you're just, like, the amount of times that we came up with or had an issue with the rule, and I was just like, hey, we're gonna roll this for now, and then we'll circle back, I'll look up and figure it out later, and we'll continue on. I think just being able to watch, like, like, a quick video about it is just just makes things a little bit more simple. Yeah,

Josh Shaw 5:58
that's good. Well, we're excited today because we do have more interview questions for you. You kind of answered the first one as a as well. I mean, if you want to expound upon it, I mean, you kind of expound upon, like, the what, like, why? Starting quest givers guide, right?

Stephen Kachur 6:12
Yeah, I'll give a little bit, I give a little bit of backstory to it. I dudes, good.

Josh Shaw 6:17
We're here for good storytelling. So storytelling master here, by the way, I've been

Stephen Kachur 6:22
wanting to do something like this for a while, as both of you now, I've probably, probably at least almost a year, have chatted with both of you guys about like, Hey, I'm not really sure like what it looks like or exactly like the details, but I know I want to do something like in The DND content creation space, right? Because a I love D and D, and I love just helping people. And I feel like being able to show a like vulnerable side. I feel like you see, like all these, like DMS, or all these, like people that play D and D, and they go online, and they seem like these professionals, which they are, but everybody, like has difficulty understanding the game, and I think being able to just kind of break it down. So yeah, probably about a year ago, honestly, when I really started thinking about it, was Gen Con last year, and I met up with some people, and they were like they had initially suggested me DMing some games this year, which I'm not going to because I have some other cool stuff planned. But I kind of, like, pondered on that for a while, and then I actually linked back up with one of them, probably, like, three months ago. And I was like, You know what? Like, I've just got to do it. I kept putting on, like, these excuses in the way, because, you know, I'm also, like, working a full time job. Just have a lot of other things going on, sure. And I was like, I'm probably never going to have more extra time than I do right now. So I kind of was just like, You know what? Who cares what people think? Who cares if people say anything or, you know, that's good. I'm just gonna jump on into it. So that's what I end up doing. And I've, I feel really good about it, you know, I'm, I'm trying to make sure I'm writing good scripts, putting out good content. I think that's like, the key is just making sure good content is going out and then the viewership and whatever my secondary goals are will just follow suit.

Josh Shaw 8:08
And I want you. I want the listeners that you guys know that after playing sessions with Steven and just knowing him personally, when he says, I want to make sure good quality content goes out there, I know that this man spends a incredible amount of time ensuring that his content is is top notch 100% I mean, he called me one day and he's like, did you watch the video? I said, Yeah, I watched it. He's like, Okay, I took it down and I changed it a little bit. I was like, you, you already posted it? He's like, I don't know. I just didn't like this. So I took down, redid it, and I put it back up, and I was like, bro, it was fire, like he really, he does. He focuses so much on the quality of the content and not about anybody's opinion. But that is, it is great quality content, and that's what I love about it.

Stephen Kachur 8:57
So one thing that I did when I started is, so there was probably about now, obviously, like I said, I've had the idea for a while, but there's probably about two months of me actually prepping. So this was me, like, getting a logo, creating, like bios, uh, creating, like a plan, like a mission and goal, all this extra things. And then I finally launched it, uh, almost three weeks ago, three weeks ago on Monday, yeah, and one of the first things I did was I created a document and I put tips to be successful. And this has like, a bunch of random things, and, like, it has like, some practical things, and it has some, like, mental just things. And one of the things I wrote was, I need to base my success off of, Am I doing what I set out to do, and not the viewership that I'm getting? So for your example, with that video, I was like, You know what? I in my opinion, I don't think this is the best it could possibly be, so I want to take it down and repost it, which really punish it. I didn't realize how much the algorithm punishes that. It did not. Do great after I did that, but I, like, I felt a lot better about that, because then when somebody goes back and Googles, I don't even remember what video it was, but yeah, when somebody googles, how does this work? And they click on the video and they watch it, they're watching a good quality video, instead of somebody just, and I, you know, just like scrolling through reels and it popping up on their page, right?

Josh Shaw 10:19
Yeah. And, I mean, you could have kept it in the long run. May have been, quote unquote successful, but it's not what you set out to do versus your goals and your vision, correct?

Stephen Kachur 10:28
Yeah, yeah. My goal is to, I want to put out the best content I can, and I know that that's can be subjective, but I think just making sure that I'm just staying on the right track and making sure I'm just putting out what I want to put out and not what is going to just get views or do well algorithmically. So, so then

Josh Shaw 10:53
that that kind of goes into the next question you kind of talked about, like, your goal is to create the best content possible. So like, what's your, what's your vision behind this? Like, obviously, we got, we kind of got, like, I know you obviously probably, like, short term, like, Vision goals that you're kind of meeting, but like, what's your big vision for

Stephen Kachur 11:10
this? So my big vision for this, and some of the things, some of these, like, I'm gonna say not short term, not long term, but, like, midterm goals. I don't want to share too much into it, because I've got some, some exciting stuff coming up. I know I've shared a little bit with both of you guys, but long term, I really just, you know, I don't just want to stay just giving these quick tips, because eventually, I mean, I'm posting three tips a week, I'm gonna probably run out of something to say at some point I'm imagining. So, you know, there's a lot of other content I want to bridge out into, and one of those being, definitely, you know, people get to see me give these tips, but do people want to see me actually DM a game, live or a recorded game? So I think that's the long term ish goal. I have, you know, some ideas longer than that, but I think that's the first, like, long term goal. Like, long term goal, like, that's where I'm headed to. I want to start off with the tips. I'm going to start doing long form videos next month. So stay tuned for that. Got some excited stuff planned for that, and, and, yeah, I think just being able to help as many people as possible. And, you know, I've already gotten some ideas from people commenting, you know, hey, you should make a video about this. You know, this kind of idea confuses me, and vice versa. So

Josh Shaw 12:22
that's pretty cool. Tony. You're just relaxing over there, which

Tony Benda 12:27
I love it. I'm just listening and enjoying I think you should do an entire series of quick tips on Curse of Strahd and how to actually play the campaign.

Stephen Kachur 12:34
Want a complete curse of straw? I don't, I don't think that's possible.

Tony Benda 12:38
Everyone usually peters out after the first, like, what? Four sessions? Yeah, we made it like five, I think one, if I was attacked by magical broom,

Josh Shaw 12:47
want to get through Christmas straw quest curves. Head here and we are gonna get you through it.

Tony Benda 12:52
I don't think we could pay big money for

Stephen Kachur 12:53
that one. I don't think you could do that in a 62nd video. That's

Tony Benda 12:57
more like long form.

Josh Shaw 13:00
So kind of going further a little bit more I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go a little bit deeper into quest givers guide, because Steven is probably one of the best storytellers that I know, truly and so that's my next question for you, Steven is, why is storytelling so important to you and in general? So

Stephen Kachur 13:17
I said my only goal when I run games is to try to make you guys cry, and it only happened a couple times. Wow, I'm just kidding.

Tony Benda 13:27
It happened more often.

Stephen Kachur 13:30
No, I think storytelling is, like, so important. I mean, that's like, that's what I love about the game, right? Like the rules and stuff like that and everything that goes along with that is is great. And obviously you need them, but I think being able to just sit down with friends, or sometimes even random people, if you're on like a one shot somewhere, just being able to create something and kind of like not check out from reality, but just kind of go in your own little universe. And the I was actually talking to Aaron, one of the other players in our game this past week, and I love that, while the we all understand it's a game, right, and we're not actually in there, but the feelings and like the emotions that came out of the campaign, they're so real. They were so real. And I love that. So I think storytelling is just important for for the fact of, I mean, in reality, it can help you through so many things, like in your own personal life, and being able to step away and just kind of, you know, some some people in their day to day life can be scared to kind of show who they really are. But when you end up in a universe where at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter, people really tend to show their true colors sometimes. And I feel like that can, like, help out so significantly. I think even just running the campaign the last three years, I think my personal life just made me a more outgoing person. You know, I think being able to have an outlet to deal with like. Things has helped me deal with a lot of things in my own personal life. So

Tony Benda 15:05
I'll say our characters in that campaign have experienced so much in a very short amount of time. It was, yes, it was insane, because our listeners know about some of the characters that we've talked about, like Creon and Kanan and Zuk are, you know, some of them. So we've talked about how Josh's character, Canaan, went down, and that was a that was a very dark moment in our campaign.

Stephen Kachur 15:33
Very dark. I

Josh Shaw 15:34
was, I don't know, I listened to film scores every now and then, because it's just it gets me. Yeah, that's my life, but I literally every time I think about Canaan's death, I thinking about, I think about the character I don't remember, Hodor from Game of Thrones. Oh yes, I think about that, the music when he's holding the door. I literally, I play that song on my head every time cannon dies. I

Tony Benda 15:55
get that, but it's crazy, because we go through these in game, huge moments. But then how does it affect the character, and how does it affect their choices moving forward? So for like my character, Zook, I watched Canaan go down, I watched my pixie companion go down at the same moment. And then my character had a choice to make. I had to run. So I turned invisible and I ran to get away from our pursuers at the time. And it was a it was a dark day by

Josh Shaw 16:27
that. But do you know what's actually like some of the best role playing that happened out of that, though? So Kanan Canaan dies. The pixie went down. You could have went invisible and just continue navigating straight, but you went back, and I don't know if you caught it, but I did. Now, thinking about, I'm catching it, the only way they were able to get through the wall that Elroy and Creon went through was like a source of really deep pain, and the two characters had like the pain to get through that. Zook couldn't get through it. Kanan tried to get through it, but couldn't that was

Tony Benda 17:01
my, as the Mistborn would say, from the Brandon Sanderson books, that was the snap in zucks life. So that was, like a huge breaking point for him to then be able to go through that wall after a couple roles. But you didn't, but I did, the character still succeeded.

Stephen Kachur 17:17
It was literally for days afterwards, I was calling everybody, and I was like, guys, I know it's just a game, but like, I like, feel like I just lost, like somebody, like, I

Tony Benda 17:28
feel hurt. You become attached to these people, because it may only be session, what, 2022, or something like that. It was very, it was very, still somewhat early in the camp. We say early, but that's been, what, almost a full year at that point? Yeah,

Stephen Kachur 17:41
it was almost a year that you had been playing that character, which is which? It is kind of crazy to think that you played the other character as longer, longer than Kanan. Because Kanan like the big bad, well, one of the big bad guys in the campaign was just evolved or revolved around Kanan, yeah. And you

Josh Shaw 17:59
also made a really great Warhammer, and I got to use it like twice,

Tony Benda 18:03
and then the care, yeah, that's horrible. I would love to see that Warhammer back at some point. It's cool, though, because, like, going back to these big moments, that changes the story arc. First of all, in terms of how Steven then has to tell that story, yeah. But secondly, how the characters respond to that. So my character, personally, like, I think it was one of that after my both my mother died, and after Kanan died, my character, kind of like,

Josh Shaw 18:30
went dark, his in his in game mother, not as, yes,

Tony Benda 18:33
my in game mother, I found out. Well, first of all, I was, I figured out my character was an orphan, or something like that, because he lost both his lost both his parents and then, and then Creon killed his dad. Later on in the campaign, allegedly killed my dad. No so my character had experienced loss when he was young, and then found out through the grapevine that his mother was still alive, somehow took an airship to go visit her, only to show up a day after she died from an illness. I'm like, this is this is dark, but it's good. And so that was a that was a weird moment for for my character. But then after that, when Canaan died, that was like the snapping point. And then, like, in my head, my guy used to have his like dark Panther cloak pulled up around his head every time he went in a battle and just like, went ballistic. So I

Josh Shaw 19:28
do this question is just coming to me because I think we've talked about it very recently too, in regards to the same storytelling topic, how do you navigate a confused table? Is not the right word to say, Okay,

Stephen Kachur 19:41
well, that was three years of my life. So how do you,

Josh Shaw 19:45
how do you navigate a role playing table of people that really want to dive into storytelling and people that want to kind of dive in a little bit, but they're mostly like, combat oriented. So like, how do you, how do you manage that?

Stephen Kachur 19:58
Yeah, I feel. Like that can be very tricky. Um, I think one important thing to remember. So the goal for any, at least, and this is kind of what I'm trying to preach off my page too, is the goal for any table is just to make sure people are having fun, right? So whatever is going to keep them coming back for more I want to have fun. Like, just do that, like, if, like, if I want, like, if I'm so dead set on you guys going down this journey, and you guys going to this place and this place and this place, but you're like, yeah, no, we'd rather not do that and go do this. I think it's important to be able to improvise on the spot. I feel like a lot of my DM and obviously there's a lot of prep that goes into running a campaign, but there's a lot of improvising, and having like resources on hand to do that improvising is super important. And I think, I mean, it's, it goes to, like, the same thing, like, you can't please everybody, right, but you can make sure everyone's having fun. And I think just keeping that in mind, like just putting out the content that they want to see, whether it's what you want to see, and can be kind of a double bladed sword, because obviously I want to have fun too, running the campaign for you guys, but I have, I find a lot of joy and fun and you guys like when I see like Josh slamming his fists down on the table, or standing like Tony standing up after he's rolled. Tony won the award for Most NAT 20s and most NAT once rolled. Nothing else. There was nothing so just like, just like the emotion, like from your face when that happened, like, it's love, hate, I love that. And honestly, one of my favorite parts in the campaign is just like when you guys were, you were standing out of there was a produce stand that I had sent them to that ended up being the ex wife of a guy, and it just, it got a little messy, but they had to stay there. It was their safe house for like, a couple days, while things like settled down. And there was a moment where I had this, like, really soft music playing. There was rain falling down, and there was a conversation going on between two players, which is crazy that I can't remember exactly what was happening, but I remember the feeling and the emotion around it and like it. It just made everything like so much better. I think was involved. I know Josh was involved with his character, and I think just Yeah,

Josh Shaw 22:19
so kind of got that storytelling philosophy, which is a really good thing to hear from a really hear from a really experienced DM now, kind of transitioning back to the page on and your journey with quest givers guide. So how do you combat negativity since starting this content?

Stephen Kachur 22:34
That's a good question. So it's crazy, because most of the negativity that I've experienced probably is from myself, okay, okay, which I know is a little deep, but I feel like constantly I'm just thinking, what, what like, Is this good enough? Are people going to enjoy this? Is this going to do well? Is, am are people going to get this? And, which is crazy, because, like, I just started, like, if everything crashed and burned, like, nothing's gonna change. Like, I enjoy my life. I enjoy my friends. I enjoy like, this is something that I'm trying to set out and do extra, I guess. So I think I was the report button.

Tony Benda 23:16
So, and I'm

Stephen Kachur 23:17
gonna get a little, I'm gonna get a little bit spiritual, because, I had a I called, I called Josh, probably, like, a week ago or something like that, and I was like, Hey, I hit a rite of passage, and he's like, Oh, what happened? Like, oh, yes, your video get a lot of views. I was like, No. I was like, I received my first negative comment on YouTube, and I was just sitting there. I was like, he's like, we were just talking about I was like, Yeah, I just kind of want everybody like, just let it be like, if that's what he wants to share, that's what he wants to share. It's, I know at that point, it was probably the video that was doing the best. So I was like, clearly, that's his one opinion versus everybody else's shouldn't matter. And actually, in my work as well. I had one of my co workers walk up to me, and we had had some issues this past week at a at a job site, and he's like, how do you say so common collective, and I love the song by Josiah queen, can't steal my joy. Yeah, and there's a part in the song, and it's not the part that was like, played, because it like, blew up on like, tick tock and YouTube and all stuff. It's not the part that was played everywhere, but there's a part of the song that goes what the world didn't give me, it can't take away. And I every single time I hear that song, like that part just always hits me so hard because I'm sitting here like, like, this person who made a negative comment, or this person who yelled at me at work, or this person who did this or did that like they didn't give me my joy, right? And I think when you can understand where that joy and peace comes from, these negative things that happen during the day or in your in your day to day life, they just kind of just roll off you, and it's such a. Good feeling when you know that.

Tony Benda 25:03
Yeah, I think for me, when it comes to the negativity side of it, I'll just tell you, to your face, I just won't post

Josh Shaw 25:14
it on YouTube. Tony, well, that's no

Tony Benda 25:16
we have our we have our critical conversations, and I know we've talked about, like, ways to improve different things, but that's more from like a building up and encouraging kind of side thing. It's never like a hey, this is terrible content, because it's really not

Stephen Kachur 25:31
there's a good way to give feedback. And I think when you're being critical of somebody, it can be easily mistaken for something else. So I think you just always have to be praying about it, like asking guys, this the right decision, is this? What is this? Is this? How is this? How it's supposed to go down because we are supposed to love others, right? Like, that's why we were sent down here, right? And I feel like it can so easily be misunderstood, because you can talk about negative things in a loving way, and it's difficult to do, but it is possible. Well,

Josh Shaw 26:06
the one of the cool things when we called and you called me, I was at work, and, like, you know, we've been friends for a long time now, and so when somebody has a negative comment, you you started, like, this internal feeling like, I've got to stand up for my friend. This isn't right. Like, like, like, this isn't right. But I just remember you kept telling me because, like, in the moment I was in my flesh, I'm like, I want to comment like, this is not fair. You're like, Don't combat hate with hate. Don't combat hate with hate.

Tony Benda 26:33
I just reported it. So

Josh Shaw 26:35
I also want to point at the fact that I was on the phone and I thought, you drop something so severely spiritual.

Stephen Kachur 26:42
Oh my gosh, you're so good. You want me to tell what the comment was before you say that, because I feel like it goes along. I think I know what you're about to say.

Speaker 1 26:49
You know what I'm about to say. It's so funny. I thought I'll let you say the comment after I give the Preface. Okay? Because I was literally on the phone and Steven, I was like, I was kind of like, heated in the flesh a little bit, and I was like, this just isn't right. Like, I gotta comment something, and we're kind of talking a little bit about it. And then, and he was, he was like, you know, he's like, Josh, you know what they say about this? And I was like, preparing my heart for him to drop something so biblical, so, um, really just kind of taken me out of profound, yeah. And Steven said, so

Stephen Kachur 27:24
I said, I said, only a Sith deals an absolute. So the comment said, the comment said, nothing of value. Do not recommend this channel. And I was like, nothing of value, that's an absolute. Nothing, nothing's an absolute. I just want to comment back and say only assist deals in absolutes, but that might be funny. I think that would be hilarious. But like I said, I I think the best way, because the more attention I show him, the more he's gonna want to comment on my video negative things, which honestly, probably actually would help me in, like, algorithmically, because the more comments, the more guys, yeah, but you know, I don't describe me. I don't want to. I want to make sure, like, as I'm building a community that we don't, you know, when somebody is like a hater or just wants to throw out a hate comment, like, we're just like, hey, you can have your own opinion. We disagree, but do what you want to do.

Josh Shaw 28:18
Also, the video literally came out of the rules. Yeah,

Stephen Kachur 28:23
he said, nothing of value was said. And I was like, Well, I actually stated three rules from the rule book. So, um, I guess if nothing of value said, he either doesn't play D and D or and also he's not out there doing what I'm doing correct. And

Tony Benda 28:40
he may just not like the mustache. I adore it. It's

Josh Shaw 28:43
the mustache that drives it.

Stephen Kachur 28:44
Seriously. I was like, I need, I need something like to be my brand. I was like, You know what we're going mustache? You know

Tony Benda 28:51
what I'm picturing in my head right now, just a D 20 with a mustache. That would be so good. We need to create T shirts. Let's do it anyway. Oh my gosh, no. So quest givers guide has been very insightful to me. I've been watching all of them, and not because we're related, but primarily because the content actually is good. It's an it's entertaining, and the mic sounds great.

Josh Shaw 29:17
So we've been this, this mic conversation. I swear we've been

Tony Benda 29:20
talking about microphones for the last few weeks, and it's been crazy. Go ahead, Steve, no, I do

Stephen Kachur 29:25
just want to give a shout out to a couple people. So one thing that helped me so in this day and age, like you have to be putting out, not just like content wise, good content, but like the way it actually looks like, the way it sounds, the way your camera looks, the way the lighting is, and I feel like it's so easy to do nowadays that people just disregard it if it doesn't look good. So luckily, I've been in the audio space, so I've had some blessings as far as my own knowledge, but I will say Tony has helped me out a significant amount in just the technical side of it. I mean, he helped me get my mic set up like literally. He helped me use just to help me with logic, like everything. So I think to anybody that's like wanting to jump into something like this, there's people around and resources around, whether it's not even like people you know, like going down to like your local store and be like, Hey, this is what I want to do, and this is like, my vision and my goal, and I want to make sure it sounds good and looks good. I mean, I literally record it with my phone, which is something that I already need to have. And my microphone that I bought was I bought it used for like, 70 bucks or something like that, and it sounds great. So you don't

Tony Benda 30:36
have to break the bank shout out to TV. You don't have to break the bank to actually have good content, though, either. So the content is, is the core of it, and the other stuff just edifies or improves what you're already looking to say.

Josh Shaw 30:49
Well, and, and Tony Tom taught me especially why when we talk about for our show with microphones. He was like, you could have the crappiest quality video, but if it sounds good, people are gonna listen?

Tony Benda 31:00
Yeah, there's, there's studies that are out there. I'll have to look them up and put them in the show notes, but there are studies that are out there that show for YouTube. People will watch a bad video, but listen because the audio is great, but you can have a 4k video, and if the audio sucks, they're gonna just flip through it so quick because, I mean, audio is what we need as humans. Like the visual side is great, but we communicate through the audio means as well.

Josh Shaw 31:31
Shout out to our shout out to our Bard episode. So one last question before we dig into some other content. Yeah, but um, let's say listeners come they subscribe. Big, big, big thing. So don't just watch. Subscribe, subscribe, subscribe, subscribe to this channel. If somebody reached out to you in a DM and they said, I started watching, I love your content, and I have my own vision and goals and things I want to do, how would you encourage others to start something, like, you're doing, or even of their own like, like, how would you encourage them to start their own idea?

Stephen Kachur 32:09
That's a good question. I think the biggest thing, and this is something that I struggled with, which is why it took me so long to dive into it, is I wanted to make sure I've had so many ideas, like, Oh, I'm gonna start an eBay business, I'm gonna do this, I'm gonna do that, and like a business, and like, six months later, I'm, like, not doing I'm not doing anything with it. And I think the biggest thing is just, like, praying about it, sitting down and just planning things out and making sure, like, this is actually what you want to do. Is this something that sounds really exciting right now, but like, six months from now, or even if you want to make a career out of it 10 years from now that you're going to still want to be doing, or is it something that's just like a hobby and like, Yeah, I'm just going to do it on the side. So I think that's the biggest thing. Make sure that this is what you want to do, and don't just, you should just do it, like, just step out and do it, but put some thought behind it and what you want to put out. Because, like, I said, it's easier than ever to put out good content. I mean, you have your phone that records great video. You can get great audio for significantly cheaper now. And you also have, I mean, chat, GPT. I mean, like it, literally, you like, have all like these resources to put out good content. So make sure you set a plan and set a mission and a goal. Because if you don't set a mission and a goal, you're going to find yourself sitting at a table, once you've put out all the videos or all the podcasts that you wanted or whatever, and you're going to be sitting there and say, All right, so what's next? But if you have a mission and a goal to go back to and say, Well, this is what I set out to do. So this is my next step in that. So create, create a plan, mission, goal, and I think just put out good content. I it's very hard to get into a mental space I know where it's just like, no where, not no worries, but I'm not going to care what people think of me. I know it's difficult to do that, but if you can get to that space putting out content so much less stressful. I remember I called uh, Aaron. It was three weeks ago when I was going to start posting, and I was like, I don't know if I can do it. He's like, What do you mean? I was like, I don't, I don't know if I don't, I don't know. Like, I'm normally, like, for so many years of my life, I've been doing all this production stuff, like, I've always been behind the camera. I was like, being in front of the camera is a little bit scary to me. And he's like, Yeah, me. He's like, yep. Haven't you scripted, recorded and edited, like, six videos already? I was like, yep. He like, so you're ready to roll. And I was like, yep. He was like, So what's stopping? I was like, I don't know. Like, I'm just, like, my heart just started beating so fast, and I started getting nervous. And I was like, I don't know what to do. And at this point I don't even have any followers, like the people following like, I'm not even, like, you know, don't even have like, this massive following or anything like that, US and your mom at that point exactly, actually, I just found out that my mom yesterday had never watched any of my videos. I'll talk to her tomorrow. Well, I pulled out my phone. She's like, Where can I watch that? And I was like, Mom, go to YouTube mine. Same quest givers guide, and you can watch my video. Just hit subscribe. That's all you gotta do. Mom, she's like, she was like, scrolling through and she's like, this is this is awesome. I was like, Yeah, I'm like, three weeks of deep. There's like, 910, videos and so, so once, once you can get to the understanding of, hey, if this is what you want to do, just start posting. It's not going to matter who says it in the long run. Are those people, if you, if you think about naturally, Aaron told me this, if are those people, is, is that one negative comment? Is that going to stop me? If it is, then maybe you should try to get in a better head space before you start posting. But that's good if you are going to I knew in my heart that if I received 10 negative comments on my first video, I was gonna keep posting at least six videos. So I think getting into that headspace is the most important part.

Tony Benda 35:52
Yeah, and I have a word that I've used frequently for myself regarding what that feeling is, and a lot of us probably experienced the same thing, especially for content creators or other people who are doing different types of work, either in front of people or, I don't know, like sometimes on stages and stuff like that. There's, it's something called imposter syndrome. And a lot of us, whether we like it or not, or admit it or not, have some sort of imposter syndrome about the things we do. Like, I'm 32 I have been in the podcasting world for almost a decade now, mostly on the back end. And now we've had the show for officially, a year, almost a year, almost a year, probably by the time this comes out. And I still have these, like, imposter syndrome feelings, like, who am I to sit behind the mic and have these long, deep conversations about D and D and faith and other TTRPG things, and I don't know it's still that weird feeling, but I mean, we've been doing it, keep recording, keep posting,

Josh Shaw 37:00
and it will, and it's hard because, and I actually, this is a recent conviction for me, is, you know, it's so hard to look at analytics and things like that and say, like, how is this doing? Where are we at going like this? I mean, I and it's a conviction for me. I mean, sometimes I hop on Apple podcasts and see how many five star ratings we have, yes and but that can be cancerous, in a way, because then you're seeking the attention of how many ratings do I get? Is it five stars? And if it goes real of the rating, well, if it goes down to 4.9 is that going to discourage you? Are you going to say that your content sucks? And one thing I battle with constantly is like, especially with the biblical content, like, someone can correct me on D and D content, okay, whatever. That's not going to rock me, because that's that's just what it is. But like, there is sometimes a genuine fear and like, the spiritual content of like is what I'm saying truly edifying to the Spirit. Am I saying something wrong? Is it this? Is it that? But Pastor motion church out to AB Elmore. But he was talking about it yesterday, he was just like, you have to get to a place where, in the storms of life, your foundation is not on the sand. You have to not be rocked by it, because if you're rocked by it, then you really need to look at yourself and say, Is my faith grounded on the rock, or am I grounded on the sand? Yeah. And as you were talking, Stephen, just about sometimes you do all this work, you just have to go for it. And having vision. Proverbs 2918 says, where there is no vision, the people perish, but he that keepeth the law Happy is he like you've got, you've got to have clear vision. You've got to have a clear drive and a clear motivation, and sometimes all it takes is praying, is just clicking post,

Tony Benda 38:45
yeah, so I'll even say this, like even having vision, you also need accountability with it too. You need people in your in your corner, to keep you accountable, not just to give it mission and vision, but also to like. I'll even say for like, our, for our side of the things, with the biblical side of things, we can have all this knowledge of the game. We can have all this biblical knowledge as well. But we also need people to hold us accountable that we are saying the right thing, and not be afraid to take biblical correction if we may be off by a slight margin and and I think we have those accountability partners in our lives easily. Yeah? AB is one of them, Aaron, I mean, Steven, and we've got, we've got plenty of people in our lives that like can hold us to that biblical accountability of being like, I think you may have read this verse a little off, or I think you said something and meant another, and that's okay, and we are open to biblical correction. Yeah, iron sharpens iron, because that's all that is. Because

Josh Shaw 39:44
the only thing that is happening in that scenario at that point is you're learning and you're both growing, yep,

Tony Benda 39:48
100% so even listeners, if you guys feel like we want to get into not debate, but like, actually have meaningful conversation, biblically, reach out to us. We'd love to. That

Stephen Kachur 40:01
if everybody has the same exact view on things now, obviously there's some, like, there's things in the Bible that, like, yeah, you shouldn't debate. Like, it's like, you know, it's God's word. Like, salvation

Tony Benda 40:12
comes from Jesus Christ, yes, he came and died. How many

Stephen Kachur 40:15
times have you heard a pastor preach about a passage of scripture and you loved it. And then a year later, you hear the same exact scripture being preached on, and it's on a completely new, different spin, and you learn something else from it. You know, I think the only way to grow is to be able to hear how different people perceive it.

Tony Benda 40:35
The Bible is alive and active and living and breathing, sharper than any two edged sword, sharper than any double bladed cemetery. It's true, I took the liberty with that one, although we'll call that the Tony's Amplified Version.

Josh Shaw 40:47
But it's also used for the division of soul and spirit, yep, or is it souls?

Tony Benda 40:53
Yeah, that's it.

Josh Shaw 40:56
But to transfer more now into the biblical side of things, since we're already hopping on there, they'll I didn't even realize when I was writing these questions at 1230 this morning, when we encourage and we're talking about just going forth and doing it is this episode is being recorded the day before Resurrection Sunday. Yes, so we're gonna praise the Lord, oh, my soul.

Stephen Kachur 41:23
All right, folks, that's it for now.

Josh Shaw 41:26
Thanks for listening. But by the time you're listening to this, you're gonna be riding off the coattails of Resurrection Sunday. And one thing that was really on my heart as we were writing this and as we're just gonna be talking about this and planning this recording session is that we hear about Jesus dying on the cross. We hear about Jesus raising from the dead. But then something we can't forget. It comes from Matthew 28 verse, 18 through 20. And it's the Great Commission going and doing these things right? We have to come to grips with these, with this, with this passage, because I think we can all quote it in our mind, but we don't. I feel like sometimes we don't fully understand the weight of what the Great Commission is. So we're going to read it, and then we're going to have just a time of prayer and kind of dissect it a little bit. If it's alright with y'all, you can't really go. Get out of it now. You're already here. I concur. Let's dive

Tony Benda 42:25
in. Nodding my head

Josh Shaw 42:28
so it says in Matthew 28 verses, 18 through 20, I'm reading from the New King James. It says, And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age Amen spirit of living God. We thank you for this time. We thank you that you are here in this conversation, and we thank You God that where two or more are gathered, there you are in the midst, Father, I just pray that as we dissect the Great Commission, Lord God, and as we I don't know if entrepreneurs is the right word. But as we post biblical D and D content, Lord God, or just even just D and D content, God, that You would give us fresh vision. You would give us clarity and what we need to talk about, Lord God, and we would humble ourselves so much, God that we ask for the wisdom and understanding to lead your people. God, it is not our followers, subscribers, not our people. They're yours. So God, give us wisdom and understanding of what to say, exactly how to say it, and Holy Spirit. I just pray that in this moment, God, you would give us the words that need to be said. God, for those that are listening, just move your hand in this conversation, so that it just touches the listeners heart. God, knowing that what is said here is something they needed to hear, or at the very, very least, God, it is just edifying to your Holy Spirit that is within us. God, we thank You for this podcast. We thank you for quest givers, God and we thank you for the joy that we get to do to be a part of this community. Lord, I'm excited to exchange conversation with my brothers, and I'm excited to exchange conversation that has revolved around you. Holy Spirit. Fall upon this place. Fall upon our hearts and the hearts of everyone whose ears this reaches in Jesus name we pray. Amen. Amen. So now let's, let's break down this passage a little bit, and I think this is really going to enlighten. Kind of maybe all of us in this room about especially, like just kind of going forth and just jumping into content creation and things of that nature. So the first part of the passage that sticks out where Jesus, well, first of all, we he start. He says, All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. That's pretty straightforward, right? Jesus is making that declaration. He has risen from the grave. He is saying, authority is all mine, because I am I'm not dead. I am alive, but we I want to hone in on the first, another part here that says, Go therefore, and make disciples of all nations. So a lot of this is just kind of open conversation between all of us. Usually I have a lot longer script, but this was just, I didn't have anything, and I said, Holy Spirit, you're just gonna have to move in this. So the first question is this, then for us, why does it seem so hard in this day and time to simply go? That's the command, right? Go, therefore and make disciples. So what? What does? What? Why is it so discouraging once we receive Jesus and know Jesus to just simply go,

Stephen Kachur 46:10
I think, and I may have actually mentioned it last time I was on here, I think just that battle between the spirit and the flesh. It's just one side of you wants to go and the other side is, well, what if they, what if they say something bad about you? Like, what if you were rejected? And what if they, like, kind of don't want to talk to you anymore, you know, but I think when you can put it in perspective, of, like, at the end of the day, I remember, I watched a video of a pastor, and he held up this rope that, like, stretched across all the states, like it was like 100 stage, like it was, like 100 hundreds, hundreds and hundreds of yards this rope, right? And he took a little piece of red tape and he put it on the end, and he said, This little piece of red tape represents your life on Earth. The rest of this represents eternity. And I think putting that in perspective of like, let's say and God has blessed my life so tremendously here on Earth, but let's say he doesn't such a small part of your existence is going to be spent here. And I think it's so difficult to get out of our own heads, though, like when I was telling you the post and the negativity came from myself. I think it's so difficult to get out of your own head and because honestly, how many times have you been worried about sharing the gospel with maybe a friend or something like that, and you're like, Well, how are they going to react? What are they going to say? And then you share, and they're like, Thank you for sharing with me. You know that is strictly just the the devil just getting in your head and just trying to put a block in God's mission in your life.

Josh Shaw 47:49
What you got Tony, like, why is it so hard to just go? I'll even

Tony Benda 47:53
come back to what we had mentioned earlier regarding content, the imposter syndrome. Yeah,

Josh Shaw 47:58
define that. I mean, I want to say I feel like we've talked about that maybe once or twice, but let's redefine that.

Tony Benda 48:06
Imposter syndrome is a psychological phenomenon where individuals, despite evidence of their competence and accomplishments, experience persistent feelings of self doubt and fear of being exposed as a fraud. So you may have all the the qualifications, you may be over qualified at doing something, but still feel like you're not good enough to do the thing and but like there's all that evidence to the contrary, and fear of I guess what this definition is being labeled as a fraud. Like for Stephen, like not wanting to post his first couple videos, he already did the thing. He did the work for the first things, videos, you're not a fraud. You are a content creator at that point, if you're doing the thing, we're podcasters, whether we like it or not, I like it, but I mean, it's different than I didn't think I would be a podcaster. I thought I would just be a producer, but I am a podcaster. Now I have to get that mentality in my thick skull cavity. It's that whole feeling of self doubt, but actually still being able to do it, I'm qualified to do it, I know how to do it, but still there's the feeling of self doubt. So when it comes to the Great Commission, there's a lot of people that feel like that's someone else's job, or I'm not good enough as a Christian, or I don't feel like I have enough knowledge to then go and expand the kingdom. That's why it feels so hard, especially in this day and age, because you can go up to your friends and they know you could be a Christian, like all of these things, but there's still that fear. There's that mental block of I'm not good enough to then share the gospel with them for some reason or another. I don't have the PhD, I don't have the seminary degree. I don't have I'm not a pastor, I'm not a minister, I'm not whatever. No, but we as the church are still called, regardless of where our position is, we are called. We have the qualifications if we have the Holy Spirit living in the side of us. And that's. Be it. So

Josh Shaw 50:00
do you think the internal struggle or the external struggle is harder internal being, the the struggle that we face within ourselves to share the gospel, or the external being that somebody will reject the gospel that we speak to them? Well,

Tony Benda 50:15
I think it can kind of be. I think one goes with the other. I think the external fear of someone with the potential to disagree or with the potential to not receive it. I think that external conflict has to deal with us still feeling not valued, not worthy, not capable of explaining it in a proper way for them to accept. But then there's a co dependence thing there where it's not up to us, it's up to the Holy Spirit to plan. We're just seed planters. Through the Holy Spirit, it's up to the Holy Spirit to harvest, to grow it and then reap the harvest.

Stephen Kachur 50:49
Yeah, I think I 100% agree with Tony and me, personally, it's just more of an internal struggle than anything, like he was saying, like rejection of what somebody might say to you. But think if you go up and say, hey, I want to share about Jesus Christ and what's the worst thing they're going to do, slap you in the face and run away. I'm sure there's much worse that can, yeah, turn the other cheek, that'll for each but I think the outcome I can almost guarantee you, is not going to be what you've created in your own mind. And the amount of times that I've gone out and been worried about what somebody was going to say because I shared the gospel with them, or because maybe, maybe you're just at work and they're talking about something, you're like, Hey, man, I really think that we should stop. Like, I feel like we're gossiping like, I feel like we should stop, right? The amount of times, like, what I've built up in my head, of them going to be like, Oh, you're so lame, and I don't want to talk to you anymore, and X, Y and Z, most of the time it's like, you know what? I think you might be right. And it can either strike another conversation or it ends there. But either way, in some way you've shared the love of Christ with them.

Josh Shaw 52:02
Yeah? Well, that's the thing too. Is, like, I really think about it in this context, and it's just kind of on my heart. But like, when we read, Go, Go therefore, and make disciples of all nations, right? Like, I do believe there are some people that are called to just run into the streets and, and, and, street, you know, street proclaim, yeah, not that I'm a street evangelist, yeah? Street evangelism. Like, there's nothing wrong with that. Have a bullhorn or a microphone and a little speaker that type of thing, yeah? Like, I've seen it, yeah? Like, if you're called to that, sure, but like, when you think about Go therefore and make disciples, you're not going to make a learner of somebody in a single conversation. Correct? You know, I'm saying like Jesus walked with his disciples for three years when he called them, he didn't just call them and just said, this is the gospel. Like they recognized, I mean, Peter and all of them recognized that he was the Christ. But he spent time with them. He spent hard hours with them, journeying, teaching, laughing, crying, so many things with them. And like I said, nothing wrong with street evangelism, but going therefore is so much easier when you build relationship. I mean, even a five minute conversation with somebody, like if we're in the workplace, a five minute conversation of positive rapport makes it easier to share the gospel that's on your heart than just walking into some random person saying, Do you know Jesus? Right? Because you don't, you don't, you don't know them. You don't know them. We're called to go, therefore and make disciples. Disciple simply just means learner. Yep, we're called to make learning people.

Tony Benda 53:39
Yeah, the term disciple implies a commitment to learning, imitation and living according to the teaching of a master. And in Christianity, our Master is Jesus himself. So when the Scripture says, Go therefore and make disciples, we're not making we're not like a Christian factory. That's not our goal, our commission. From what my understanding of this scripture is, go and make a disciple. You have to be in relationship. You have to have that that devotion, as this thing says, a devoted follower of Jesus, especially a student or learner who adopts the teachings and way of life. So there has to be that intimate relationship. There has to be that one on one time spent. There has to be intentionality behind these things, and not just a I'm going to go on the street corner and proclaim, and that's not bashing that by any means, because we are also called to evangelize. We're supposed to preach the gospel, we're supposed to help save the lost, but we're also called to make disciples. Jesus had 12, by the way, did I say Did I say it wrong? No, no, I'm just, I'm just saying, like, oh, Jesus had 12 disciples. That doesn't mean I go and I make 50 disciples, because how many, realistically, how, how relational can you be with more than 12? I think Jesus did it right? Small groups.

Josh Shaw 54:53
Jesus just did a little right? I mean, could use him and then that okay, I'm kidding. Well,

Tony Benda 54:59
the reason I. Even say that is because, like, I've even had not debates but conversation about small groups and like or life groups, or D groups, whatever people call Sunday school or groups at their church, those individual relational groups within a church building or a church organization. I think the Christ model of 12 should be our max for a small group, or within within a degree of two. Maybe because beyond 12 people in a room or at a dinner table, how else can you build a relation? Or how else can you really like be in community or in Koinonia with people beyond the the 12 You

Josh Shaw 55:39
just dropped Greek on me. Maybe

Stephen Kachur 55:42
it's all Greek to me, especially when you all sit on one side of the table.

Can I say that? Look that up. Make sure it's okay to say and cut it if it needs to be

Tony Benda 55:58
nothing, that's that's a good one. Oh my, it's hard to paint people's backs when

Stephen Kachur 56:07
I think, I do think it's important too that disciples recruit disciples. So, yeah, you don't have to be this, like, higher than being that, you know, reads the Bible 18 hours a day and does all these things and preaches to 1000s of people like, okay, then, then you're qualified to recruit disciples. No, it's, it's just, I mean, that's what we're sent out to do that, that great commission isn't just made for individual. It's not just made for certain individuals. It's made for the whole body of Christ, right? Yeah, Christ, right? Yeah. And I think that that's important to remember, especially like when we think that we lack the ability or knowledge to pray to somebody or share the gospel or, I mean, how many times does somebody come up to you guys and been like, Hey, will you pray for me? And you're like, uh, me, you know, yeah, yeah.

Josh Shaw 57:03
I do you guys. You guys know the story of when Jesus cast Legion to the pigs, right? Yes, you guys know that story. So what I find interesting from that story is not the fact that Jesus cast out an entire legion of of enemy into pigs. But do you guys know what happened after the story, or after, after the pigs are cast out.

Tony Benda 57:23
Please share. Please share after the demons went into the picture.

Josh Shaw 57:26
After the demons were cast into the pigs and they ran off the cliff. What happened?

Tony Benda 57:30
Swine Flu. I Sorry. Remnants of no one flew off the cliff. Sorry, that was bad. How do I do this with you?

Josh Shaw 57:44
So the interesting thing about that, and what I think we skip over, and I would love to preach someday, is that when Legion was cast out, this man was actually clothed, comforted and caught laying at the feet of Jesus after it, right? So, but the response from the people in the town was that they were shaking in fear. They were scared of everything, and not only just scared, I think, because of the fact that Jesus did an incredible work, but also he just drove their entire livestock off the off the cliff, which shows their own insecurity. But the important part of the story, in my opinion, is that they cast Jesus off so bad they wanted him to leave, so bad that and the guy that had Legion cast out said, I want to come with you. And Jesus said, No, your place now is to go share your testimony to everybody in the town, because they rejected me, but they won't reject your story. That's good, you know? And I when I think about Go, therefore, I was actually convicted by this scripture. And in my Bible, the heading at the top is called the cost of discipleship, yeah. And I think sometimes you don't go therefore and do these things because of what it's going to cost us preach, right? You know, sometimes with posting with quest givers guide, what is this going to cost me? Is this going to what kind of fear is built up in there? Is this going to cost me something? Of course, it's going to cost us. It's going to cost us our time. It's going to cost us our a lot of things that we have to learn to prioritize, right? Somebody said to Jesus, this they said, and another also said, Lord, I will follow you, but let me first go and bid them farewell, who are at my house. Let me go say goodbye to my family. Jesus's response to this individual saying, I'm going to follow you, but let me go do this. First was this, but Jesus said to him, no one having put his hand to the plow and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God that. But he said, What is he saying here? Then he's saying that cool. I'm super glad you're gonna follow me. But if you're not willing to just simply say, I'm just gonna go, do it, I'm just gonna go, I'm not gonna look back. Paul says, I don't look to the things that are behind, but I straight forward to the things that lie ahead. If we're so focused, like if we're plowing a field, like I drive by a field every time I go home, and the straight lines that the that the plow, or whatever that you call it makes is mesmerizing as you pass by it. But there's also other tools designed, other machinery designed that once the crop grows, it's able to navigate through those straight lines to retrieve the crop, to retrieve the harvest. If the lines are curved, that machine can't do its work. It can't navigate through the field. So Jesus is saying, if you spend all your time looking behind you at the things that were, instead of going forward to what lies ahead, you're not only going to be so bent in the past, you're going to miss what lies ahead. So it does cost us. It does cost to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. It does cost us to go there for but that's again. But that's also the beautiful thing about relationships I've often found I when I left, cast off so many quote, unquote, friends that weren't actually my friends, and that when I started looking forward I met you guys, right? I cherish this relationship with y'all more than I did. I do the past friends that I had? Why not that? That it wasn't appropriate for a season, but because I looked forward and I went ahead to where the Lord had for me look at everything that's transpired. Now, not only have we known each other for so long, but now we're sitting at a podcasting table together that we're preaching the Gospel were and bringing forth new ideas. It's a beautiful thing to look forward and not lie ahead. It's a beautiful thing to go. But then I have another question in that, which is this, right? I think sometimes, often, we define Go, therefore is just saying, all right, cool. I'm going to receive the gospel and I'm only going to go talk to other Christians because I because I only want to be built up. But Jesus said we are not to put our lamps under the lamp stand or under a basket, but we're supposed to be a light in the darkness, right? And I think we can all agree that there is some openness within the gaming community. I think I think, I think we can agree, and I think we can all kind of read between the lines there, on that one, right there. So what does it look like to be a to be the light in a dark place? Or how do you do that, rather than, rather than just being a light in a light? Because even Jesus said Even sinners can love each other, right? It's easy for us. It's easy for a sinner to love another sinner. It's easy for a believer to love a believer, but how do you, how do you begin to be a how do you, how does the light begin to love, to love those that are in the dark, to bring them to the light? I'm curious, because I I feel like that, maybe this we fail at. I really do 100%

Stephen Kachur 1:02:54
and I one of the things that I, I like to talk about with people the most is when you're going out and sharing the gospel with somebody, or you are telling people somebody about Jesus for the first time. People, people can't argue with how you feel right. Like I could read them a scripture in the Bible, and I can think this, and they might think that, and they can debate me and argue me or whatever. But if I tell you that, like Jesus gives me peace and he gives me love, and I feel like I'm a better person because I have Jesus in my life. They can't argue with that. So I think Jesus is love. There's worldly love, and then there's and then there's Godly love, right? And I think in nowadays Christianity, that line gets blurred, which is very scary, because people say, you know, like people, like non Christians that may get married, right, and they love each other, and maybe they do, but it's more of a worldly love, because what happens when that other person goes and cheats on them, or they leave, or they slap him in the face, or do something along those lines, right? Nine times out of 10 they're gonna split up, right? Like, what is it's like 50% of people get divorced or something like that. It's a crazy, like, a crazy amount. But what do you when you can go out and show Jesus's love? It's a completely different ball game, because then it's an unconditional love, where, and we all struggle with this. I mean, how many times if somebody wronged you and you said that you love them, and then, you know, you get annoyed or mad or something like that, and you're like, you know what love is, patient. Love is kind. It does not hold any wrongdoings. And what if? What if God did that does right? How many times the equivalent of like someone cheating or something like that? How many times have we done that to God? Oh, hundreds, hundreds. Preach right every day. And I think, to bring it back full circle. To your question, I think that's what being the light in the world looks like, is being able to spread the Godly love, and not the worldly love, which, again, we stumble at every single day. Nobody's perfect. But as soon as you can define that difference and realize that there is a difference. Because again, I feel like nowadays, like modern Christianity, that line is like so blurred as so many things have been blurred in the church now, which is, again, very sad. But I think as songs, you can make that distinction, it will help you be that light in the world. Yeah, that was a little drawn down. Sorry. That

Josh Shaw 1:05:41
was actually, that's actually super good, you know, and that even, even me thinking about it, like, I didn't even think about it that way, to be honest with you, like, just, just in my own, like, think I really didn't even know what to say, to be honest with kind of, why I asked you guys first, but that, but that's so important, is that we, we don't understand that love. Well, let me, let me say this, it's not that we don't understand that love, it's that we try to love. We try to do it so much that's like we almost become, like, it's a weird term, but we almost become try hards 100% Yeah,

Stephen Kachur 1:06:17
I so me and Josh went to a and I'm looking up the guy's name right now, so I get it correct. We just went to a men's conference, and the guy who did the worship leader for that weekend, I

Josh Shaw 1:06:35
don't I thought it was Carl Carty. It was, it was, um, yeah, it was there. He is okay.

Stephen Kachur 1:06:41
So he's got this song, and phenomenal worship leader. He did very often, very good. And the reason why I brought up, what I brought up before was he has this song, and it moved me so much. And it went, I'm not I'm not a singer, so I'm just gonna say the words. But it said it basically like the whole the bridge or the chorus went, like, there is love, Surely the Lord is here, there's forgiveness, Surely the Lord is here. It's because those things can't exist without God. Yes, like, love cannot exist without God, forgiveness cannot exist without God. God is the epitome of forgiveness, right? I mean, he, I mean, well, yes, he created it, because He created everything, but he is the perfect example of forgiveness, right?

Josh Shaw 1:07:30
And that's what, and that's kind of what I'm saying, like, when I use it, when I use the word, like, try hards i use i do it loosely, but I feel like we try so hard to love, that we're trying to be we're trying to do it in this way of like, almost trying to like, to justify it ourselves. Like I feel like we're like, Okay, I gotta love people. I gotta love them the best. But sometimes, if we are not careful, we subconsciously fall into a place where I say, I have to love the best in order to impress Jesus, I need to love. I need to love just like he needs to love, so that he knows that I'm qualified to love, that he knows that I'm qualified when, let's be honest, Jesus was annoyed with his disciples, like their lack of faith, their lack of understanding. I mean, when you continue to read through the Gospels, Jesus just gets more annoyed. But Jesus didn't focus on their short on their on their short term lack of understanding, but the long term vision of what he was going to do for them anyway. You know, in full transparency, I had an experience at work one time where an individual was in the office, was verbally abusing a child, and it was awful, it, it, it broke my heart. I started to cry. I was righteously angry. But in the moment, all I felt I heard the Lord speak this, and to some it may be an aggressive st statement, but I'll, I'll explain it further. I just heard the Lord say to me, Vengeance is mine. Why we want to take justice so much into our own hands? But justice is not meant for us. It's meant for God. I'm not and that's not me saying there's anything wrong with like the justice or the judicial system. Please don't. Don't Don't interpret it like that. I'm not saying that's a bad thing, but what I'm saying is that so often we try to take judgment into our own hands that we forget how to love people. We blur the line. We say, I'm going to do more justice than I'm going to do more loving I'm going to judge more people than I'm going to do, spend time loving them. Jesus was saying to me, like Josh, I've got that. That's what he was ultimately saying to me, I've got that in what you're righteously anger about. He didn't condemn me for my righteous anger, because I knew it was an evil that is not good. But in the moment, he said, I need you. To love them. I need you to care for them. I need you to show them what true love is, by your actions, by your words, by how you move through my Holy Spirit that's in you, all the rest of the things you're angry about, I'm going to take care of. I'm gonna, I'm gonna handle it because we do that, we smack people with truth and not enough grace, or opposite way we smack more truth, or we smack more grace than we do truth. But it's that fine in between where Jesus said, where we throw people to the dirt, and say, Jesus, what are you gonna do about this? And he looks at us and said, Are you gonna throw a stone? Are you? Are you gonna Are you? Are you more perfect than they are? Are you gonna make them bleed out from how many stones you throw when you should be in the same boat, but like you're you? You kind of like, hit, hit me too, is like, if we try to love somebody outside of the love of Jesus, we're not going to succeed. We can't

Stephen Kachur 1:11:11
I think for everyone that's listening, God doesn't need our help. He's

Josh Shaw 1:11:19
got it preach, bro, we're done. And

Stephen Kachur 1:11:22
there's so much hate in this world already, and there's so much division in this world already. And yes, as Josh was saying, there is a line where, if you see something like, yes, go say something Stop it, like, Absolutely, but absolutely. Also maybe if two of your friends get into a giant argument, and they start yelling at each other, and like, one person does seem clearly wrong, instead of going up to them and yelling at them for yelling at the other guy, like, Hey, man, is everything okay? Like, can we? Like, there's a different way to approach it right, because there's already so much, like I said, division and just argument in this world that being able to take the other route that you were saying, like, hey, like, yes, maybe, maybe I get angry because or or upset because they said something or they did something, but combating it with hate or anger to them is not not

Josh Shaw 1:12:21
going to help anybody. That's not promoting love, it's promoting division. Yes, there's a there's You're right. There's a line of justice that we have and that we that we need to take hold of. If we see an injustice, we should stop it. Obligated. We're obligated to stop it, right? That's what police are for, that's what the law is for, that's what courts are for. That's a beautiful thing. We are obligated to stop it, but it's, how do we stop it? Shooting somebody is not going to ultimately stop

Stephen Kachur 1:12:47
it. Not. Amen to that. Amen to the first thing

Josh Shaw 1:12:52
you say, you know, shooting somebody is not ultimately going to stop it. You know, that's a whole debate and whatever. But like, we need to have a mindfulness of Christ, because sometimes the way we want to stop it is not how God wants us to stop it. I I've literally heard testimonies of videos about people getting robbed, and rather than trying to fight them or beat them, they literally, they literally just say, Christ, rebuke you. I've literally heard the story of like a woman getting robbed in a parking garage, and she was about to get stabbed and was threatening to get stabbed, and just saying, and kept saying, Christ, rebuke you. Like Christ, rebuke you, Christ, rebuke you. Christ, rebuke you. And and this person started to convulse, and a demon was cast out of this

Stephen Kachur 1:13:43
person. Goodness, hmm, I'm getting chills like

Josh Shaw 1:13:46
that. But see, but see, that's, that's where you need to be sensitive to the Holy Spirit. And let me just add this in there, because it just is what it is. The word says baptize in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, Holy Trinity, done. Set deal. That's all I'm gonna say about that one. Some people differ in that, but hey, I followed this father. I follow the son and I follow the Holy Spirit, the three in one, throwing that out there. But that's that's the important of being sensitive to the Holy Spirit. I'm not saying that's every situation. If someone's gonna try and stab my wife, I'm gonna put him in a choke hold. Sorry, I'm gonna put him in a choke hold. But there's a sensitivity to the spirit in which there is a certain amount of faith that requires for some moments, in the moment, with the with my situation at work, I went into the bathroom and I literally prayed, your Holy Spirit needs to fall right now, because if it doesn't, I'm gonna choke hold somebody because, because my flesh wanted to be in the way. But when I prayed that individual didn't say another word to the kid, God never heard of it, never said another single word to him, even when the child was trying to do something, this, that or the. Third, where I believe she could have lashed out. It's like she wanted to say a word, but didn't, because God took care of it. And the next day, they were still talking about this individual, and they said, Joshua, do you think? And I said, I pray not for this, that or the third, but I said, I pray that she walked away feeling a conviction of the Holy Spirit saying I messed up. And rather than preaching condemnation towards somebody preaching restoration, because going forth and going forth and making disciples of all nations means that we are trying to bring a message of restoration, not condemnation. Yeah, even

Tony Benda 1:15:43
thinking through that whole prayer portion is James five six says, acknowledge your faults to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed. And then it says, For the prayer of a righteous man availeth much, it can be fervent. So pray in those situations for sure, because the prayers of a righteous man or woman availeth much.

Josh Shaw 1:16:02
I want to move into the next portion of the teaching, which says, teaching them to observe all the things that I've commanded you. Right? Jesus commanded a lot of things in the scriptures, right? Which is why my personal conviction is I'm going to be in the gospels on repeat. Matthew Mark, Luke John. Matthew Mark, just on a constant repeat, constant staying in the commandments of Jesus, right? But my question is, this is Jesus has now given, he authority has been given to him, meaning that the words that he's telling us to do are going to carry authority as we go. But now he's giving even though he has authority, he's giving us authority now, saying, teaching them we're now, we're called to go and teach. So what is the question is, then, what is the key to being an effective teacher? Quest givers guide is about teaching people, yeah, dungeons and disciples is about teaching people, right? What is the key to being an effective teacher. So

Stephen Kachur 1:17:01
I love watching videos, and I've done a lot. I've read a lot about this area specifically, and what makes a good teacher or a good leader, or a good fill in the blank, someone of of influence. And you know, at at my current job, I'm in a position of leadership, and I think the biggest thing, and especially like when people come up to me and they say, Hey, like, what can I do to get that promotion? What can I do to move up the ladder? And the first thing I tell them is, A to be a leader. It comes with more or teacher, it comes with more responsibility. And I've heard people say, is leadership a responsibility or a privilege? And a lot of people take it as a privilege. And sorry, I'm using the words leadership and teacher side by side, because in this scenario, I'm considering them basically the same thing, being a teacher or leader is a responsibility. It's not like, okay, hey, I've got all of this power and can do all of this. The best teachers, the best leaders, are the people that are still willing to sit, sit and learn and take feedback back from people, even people that you may consider, you know, maybe from a flesh, flesh perspective, you may consider not worthy to give you any feedback or give you any information. And I feel like a lot of people, when they get into a position of teaching and how to grow, they're just like, Okay, well, I made it. Like, listen to me. Don't do anything. I don't tell you to, like, I encourage especially at work, like, if you have a different opinion, like, share it with me. Like, sure. Like, we'll, we may go back and forth, and we'll eventually come on decision, whether it's just like, hey, I still think this is the route we need to take. Or, you know what, you're right, we should go that way. And I think being able to collect feedback, as well as learn from the people that you are teaching puts you in such a better head space to grow and also to gain respect from those people around you. Yeah,

Tony Benda 1:19:22
what you got Tony on teaching? That's a good question. I'm not a teacher, okay? But that's not true, okay? There are things that I can teach people.

Josh Shaw 1:19:32
So as a worship leader, right? What? What is the key to be an effective teacher? Not not just musically, every element you can think of.

Tony Benda 1:19:41
I think from the teaching standpoint, I'll even say from like the worship perspective, this is something I've been trying to drive into our team for a long, long time, and it starts at the heart. It's not even about fixing people. People. It's about making sure they recognize again, it's coming back to mission and vision in the worship sphere. What is our mission and vision? To me, I think it was to praise and glorify God through song and teach the congregation to do the same. So for that type of mission vision, we have to make sure that we keep that in focus. But also the heart has to be right as we're focusing on that, because it's not about us by any means. We have to get out of the way on the platform. If we're seen, we're doing it wrong. No, not even saying just like using your eyes to be seen. I'm saying, like, the metaphorical, if we are, if people are thinking about us in our song and how good it sounding, or how bad it sounding, or, man, she hit that solo. That was great, whatever the thing is, then we're not doing our job. We should be distraction free to then bring excellence and then glorify God through our gifts and talents, and then that whole thing, yeah, it's never about performance. You look like you have something. Can

Stephen Kachur 1:21:03
I ask you a just because I'm very curious, can I ask you a potentially difficult question? Go for it. So again, here for the difficult, I am not a worship leader. In the perspective of I've never stood on stage and played instrument or song in front of you, because people would exit the building, sure, but let's so. So let's say you're leading from from stage, because obviously you do want everyone to have the ability to be able to play well or sing well or do whatever, right. Because, like you said, we're supposed on the platform. You're supposed to bring excellence and let God do his thing. If you do, you ever run into scenarios where you do not think somebody is bringing the best they could, and maybe not because they don't have the ability, but maybe because, like, Hey, you didn't practice. I'm just

Tony Benda 1:21:49
gonna say this word, weekly, weekly, and that's not to that is not to hate on the people that are currently serving or being willing to serve in their local body. Sure, the problem lies when we allow other things in the world to rob us of giving our, you know, time and talent, resources and all of these things we have rehearsals for a reason. The expectation Well, in a normal church environment, the expectation is, you come to your rehearsal with your music learned, ready to finesse and like, fine tune the things that we're supposed to be playing on that next, the next service, whatever that is. So the expectation is, I give you the sheet music in advance, or your chord charts, whatever it is. I give the singers their lyrics and their parts. Go learn, go do, go practice. Because if you're not investing outside of our group rehearsal time, I'm not here to teach you the notes. I'm not here to teach you how to hit that C, that, whatever the thing is. Not here to show you how to shape your hands for the guitar. I'm here to from the spiritual aspect, make sure our hearts are prepared. And from the musical aspect, make sure that our individual parts are blending as a musical whole. Not to be teaching you how to play that C chord over a G and then walk it, walk it up the right way, whatever the thing is. So weekly I struggle with that whole thing, because people show up and they're not prepared. When I have people showing up on like, was because we were we would have our Tuesday night rehearsals. I'll say we have Tuesday night rehearsals when they are arriving to the rehearsal and they're like, what songs are we doing? Do you know how often that happens, and how disappointing that is. As a worship leader. It is so disheartening and so like, in my flesh, wanting to grip them by the neck and strangle them with a spiritual two by four, whatever, however you need to do that. Like, I'm not a violent person, folks. But like that just grinds my gears. Like, you know what the expectation is. Why would you come and create distraction when our purpose for that Sunday morning is to be the best that we can be, to give God the glory like in in the Bible, it talks about, it says, In the Old Testament, God called on skilled musicians, particularly the the Levites, to lead worship and praise their music in the temple, there are actual Bible verses that says, play Psalm. 33 three, play skillfully before the Lord and First Chronicles. 25 Verse seven, there are 288 of these men, and all of them were skilled musicians. David assigned them their duties by asking the Lord what he wanted. Everyone was responsible for something, whether young or old, teacher or student. So this shows that even in the Bible, the Lord calls for skilled musicians, so on a Sunday morning service, just because I say this with as much grace and as much love. Of as I possibly can. Sometimes you get what you get, but at other times, in an environment where you have the ability to say, I'm sorry, but I don't think in this moment, you are prepared to lead that is a hard conversation. And as a leader, as a teacher, you are still trying to love them and pour into them, spiritually, musically, all of these things, but it's a hard conversation. And there's, there is a line to draw, because we're supposed to be giving God our best.

Josh Shaw 1:25:32
But there's also, it's a hard balance, but there's also an element, as a teacher and a leader for going talking about leadership in congruence with that is has having that hard conversation but not giving up on them with it? Yes, right? The Bible calls us to what you're also talking about is walking in excellence. Philippians four, chapter four, verse eight, says, Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely and whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there's anything worthy of praise, think about these things. We're called to walk in excellence. We're called to walk in these things. And even with teaching, right? I love I love teaching the Bible. There is a quality of excellence. There is a quality of accountability that I have to walk in as I teach the Word of God. I don't want to be a false teacher. I've read plenty of Proverbs that scares me as to being why, right? But that's, that's also part of it. And kind of what I was going to say regarding about what is the key to being an effective teacher? It's humility. It's 100% it's humility. It's I was thinking about David in this scenario. Um, when David was gonna about to go fight Goliath, everyone was trying to clothe him in the king's armor, or an armor that he said he had, he had not fitted or tested, but I can imagine him grabbing five smooth stones and people saying, What are you doing? David didn't go out to battle with a sword or with armor on, and said, he went out and threw a stone, grabbed the sword of Goliath and beheaded him, and therefore, then used the sword to finish the rest of the fight that was ahead. David didn't go out to what the world would say as equipped, but he went more than equipped Yep, for the fight ahead. So when we walk in a teaching we need to walk in humility, saying, you like, we can receive things to be equipped. I'm a graduate of Liberty University. I was equipped with essential tools and skills to go out into the world. But here's the thing is, I don't lean or boast my Bible degree, because ultimately, there was a lot of textbooks that I read, and I remember about 1% of them. Just being honest about that, I remember about 1% of textbooks I read. But what I do remember is the skills that I learned to be in the word and and lean on to the one who's going to give me counsel into those things. And it's like it's in Luke, I was just reading a couple day or yesterday. You know, when we go before the teacher or the the other teachers, the magistrates, everybody, the Holy Spirit is going to give you the words to say, we can prepare all of the content that we want to you can have Stephen, you can have the best script for quest givers guide, but what's going to happen when the Lord says, Hey, Stephen, I don't want you to talk about that. I know you want to talk about that, but I don't want you to talk about that. I want you to talk about this. You can say why, but if you continue to fall through with your plans, you may miss an opportunity the Lord has, but if you lean into his plans and say, Man, I feel the Lord. Tell me talk about this, you could not only get the best ratings on it, but you may truly not just get a rating. You might enlighten somebody same thing with this podcast. There are so many times I wanted to do an episode like this, and I messaged Tony the night before and saying, I'm changing it, yeah,

Stephen Kachur 1:29:03
which that has actually already happened to me. It's actually funny, you say that. So actually, my most recent video that I posted that happened to me, and I was editing it, and I made it, and I was like, You know what? Like, I think it's good, but I'm really just not feeling it. And I was like, and like, God. Was just like, just, just post it. I was like, it's not gonna, like, if it tanks. I mean, you're not that big right now, if it tanks, tanks, whatever. And it actually ended up being my best performing video. It was really good. I think you, I think you might have actually called me and somebody else called me and they were like, hey dude, like, the video is great. Like, it's popping off. And I was like, that's crazy, because I literally watched this video, and I was like, I

Tony Benda 1:29:43
mean, he's like, hold my holy water.

Stephen Kachur 1:29:47
And, yeah, listen, listen to LISTEN to the Spirit. And I also want to encourage Tony on something that he wouldn't his thing that he just talked about was we all you. Don't, like, correct me if I'm wrong. Tony. Tony, I don't think he's coming at the point of it is, like, we are all sometimes in that position too. Like, how many times? I mean, I know you guys both have children, right? Some of them very new children. Like, how many times is, like, maybe a Saturday night went really rough, and you like, wake up on a Sunday morning, you're just like, I'm just not on it. Or I have very different I don't have any children, so my scenarios are a little bit different. But like, something happens the night before something goes in, you just go a day that you're supposed to bring excellence, whether that's to work or to worshiping or to fill in the blank, and you just wake up and you're just like, Yeah, this isn't the day

Josh Shaw 1:30:38
Yeah. Or how many people walk out of a church building on Sunday morning carrying this leaving the spirit in the building.

Stephen Kachur 1:30:45
Can I say something that's it's on topic, but it's off topic. So it because it goes. It does. It does relate to things that both of you guys said, but you talked about difficult conversations. And I think one to go back to your question of a key to being an effective leader. If you're listening to this and you want to be a leader, or you want to be a teacher, or you want to be in a position of some sort of influence, which, again, is a responsibility, not a privilege, you are going to have to be uncomfortable, and you are going to have to do difficult things if you feel like you cannot do that, it may just be a heart check. It may just be praying to God. I'm not saying, hey, like, if that's what you feel like you're supposed to do, this is not me saying don't do it. I'm just saying, know that there will be difficult conversations and uncomfortable things that you will have to say, and you have to navigate it with a heart of love, and you have to the amount of times that I've had a in, been in a situation at work and something's happened, and everyone just stares at you, like maybe someone says something, or someone does something, or someone and everyone just looks at you, and they're looking at me because I'm the one that's leading them. And then I have to, you know, take I have, no matter how uncomfortable it may be, I have to take care of the situation. Yeah, yeah. And I feel like that's one thing that a lot of people in leadership positions, they like the power of being like, hey, I need you to go do this for me. I need you to do this for me. I need you to go install this or do this. But there is a and yes, that is a privilege of it, right? But there is also a side of it that is very difficult. And I remember I called my dad one time, and I got put in a very uncomfortable situation at work, something happened, and I had to talk to somebody about something, and I called him, and I was like, I don't know what to do. Like, I feel like I have to say something, like I can't go with what situation happened. I was like, I feel like I can't say anything. And he, you know, he told me, he when I called him and I told him about the scenario, and he goes. Sometimes you just have to have difficult conversations, which I know is very simple, and it's something I just needed to hear. Sometimes it sucks to hear it. It just sucks to hear it. And you just have to have difficult conversations to be able to be in a position of leadership. And that's what makes a good leader and a good teacher, by the way. Like, yeah, I have never seen a good leader or a good teacher that can't sit down with you and correct you in a loving way, and again, in that same fashion. I'm not saying you're here that to be this righteous fist that corrects people and tell people what they're doing wrong, because on the flip side, I've never seen a good leader or a good teacher that can't also take the correction back. Yeah.

Josh Shaw 1:33:38
Yeah. That's I need. I need, I needed to hear that. I've been, I've been experiencing stuff at work like that, and you're so right. It's, I'm just going to glean from that wisdom. I'm not going to comment on it. That hit me deep. Well, gentlemen, we're entering the last half of the scripture for the last half

Stephen Kachur 1:34:02
of the podcast, I was like, brother, I didn't go get lunch soon.

Josh Shaw 1:34:07
This is it is ending, and Tony's showing me his watch, but the last half of the scripture of the Great Commission is something we I feel like we miss, and this is more the part of the episode where it's just kind of more I feel like just testimonial at this point, but it says And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age. And I feel like as we go and do the Great Commission, we're so focused on going, we're so focused on teaching, but I don't think we ever rest in the comfort and the promises that God is with us while we do it all. So my question is, in the midst of perfection and hardship, what is one way you try to remember that he is with you? Or simply put it in a little more simple fashion, how do you connect with him during those times?

Stephen Kachur 1:34:56
I feel like there's been a lot of times in my. Life Where I'm going through something and you just feel like, God's not there with it, with you, right? And I it's, it's very important to remember that this message is so encouraging because he is there. There is something in your life that is blocking your connection with him, and 99% of the time, and I would say 100% of the time, but I know someone's gonna be like, well, he forgot this. It's probably sin, yep. And I struggle with there's times where you just feel like you're just getting beat down, beat down, beat down. And you just look up and you're like, God, like, I know you're there. I've never I obviously we all have doubt. And I look up and I'm like, God, I know you're there, but, like, tell me something, please and not and most of the time it's you, but I will say, Take encouragement in I heard this, and I don't know if it's something that's been popular said or what. I don't know who said it, but the teacher is always quiet during the test. So take encouragement in God, take encouragement. And God may be trying to show you something in this time. And actually there's something that in we had service last night, and I was convicted on this exact same thing, because there's some things that I've been trying to work through, and I've just been praying to God, and I'm like, God, like, what's up? And he's like, take this time to seek Me and just because, because I'm trying to find all these like, how do I fix this problem? How do I do this? And God's like, just get closer to me and see what happens. And I took that encouragement from messless night, because God, if that is the case, and God is trying to teach you something, which is the reason why maybe you're not hearing from him so much. Trust me, he will not let you break, and he will give you reminders, whether it's as simple as just like, a quick word from him, or you experienced something, something during the day, or Josh calls me and is like, hey. Like, I don't know why, but God just wanted me to say, like, keep going. You know, like, no matter what it is, God won't let you he's not gonna let you break, and he's not gonna let you go too long without hearing from it.

Josh Shaw 1:37:24
God is not gonna give you so much that there's not a way of escape. I do. I'm gonna straight up say it, I believe that God will give you more than you can possibly handle,

Tony Benda 1:37:35
so that we can rely on him

Stephen Kachur 1:37:37
on your own, more than you can

Josh Shaw 1:37:38
handle on your own. Yes, people say God's not gonna give more than him. No, that's not true. I don't believe that, because if God didn't give you a little bit, if God God didn't allow a little bit more in your life, you would not be able to rely on him. But the that Scripture also state that in that time there will also be a way, a provided way of escape, meaning in my when I think about my spirit right now, in that scripture, meaning that in the midst of that, God will provide the shadow of the Almighty where you can sit and take refuge under but Steven, you said something that I have to reiterate, because it absolutely, actually almost drove me out of my seat. You said, the teacher is always quiet during the test. That is great. That is That'll preach, brother, because there has not been a test that I haven't taken, that the teacher is just going to walk around and give you all the answers all the time. He's he wants you to remember the things that he's taught you as you walk in the middle of that test and trial. But the test is, the test has the time limit. You know, I'm saying there, there is a time limit to the test. That's good too. He's gonna he is going to the test is going to end, and there's going to be another period of teaching and instruction, and there's going to be another test, and it has a time limit, and there's going to be more instruction for the rest of our lives, the the rest of the red tape that we have, until we carry it into eternity. So that's that is a powerful teaching. And one way that I remember that he's with me in the midst of those is that I heard a pastor say one time, I think it was Keenan Clark. He said, We need to get over the serotonin mentality of our faith, meaning, like, serotonin is a natural chemical, the natural feel good chemical that comes into our body when we experience something. He said, we we chase God, and we only attribute God that it's the goosebumps. Yeah, like, Oh, if I get goosebumps, I know the Holy Spirit's there. No, that's not true. The Holy Spirit's everywhere. You could have a crappy day. And if you, if you're trying to rely of Your Holy Spirit meter being that when I pray, I get goosebumps, and he's there. That's not true. We got, we have to get way away from the serotonin mentality, because God is present in every circumstance. God

Tony Benda 1:39:57
works beyond just the feeling mentality, the. Healings portion of our faith, right? Well, God,

Josh Shaw 1:40:01
I mean, God created serotonin. We understand that chemical because he created it. But if we solely rely on God's presence, as if I don't get goosebumps, then God's not there. You're missing the mark. Yeah, you're missing the Holy Spirit. Because if you, when you lean in and just trust that you're here, I don't care if I'm this or that, or the third, you're here, done sealed deal. The helmet of salvation is all about making sure that whenever the enemy speaks something into your mind, you all what you have the most foundational thing to lead back onto. Of I don't care what you say. I'm sealed on the Holy Spirit. I'm sealed in Jesus Christ for eternity.

Tony Benda 1:40:37
Yeah, we can't go chasing the serotonin Christianity mindset. But we also can't be stuck in the melatonin Christianity mindset either. Oh, so we we can't just be lazy with our faith. Which goes back to the whole Matthew 28 and the Great Commission, we can't just feel the goosebumps and the good parts of it. We have, we have to get up and do something. So that's why we have to come back to Matthew 28 and go and make disciples. Like, I'm not going to get up and go when my body's on melatonin and be like, You know what? I'm all chill. I give melatonin to my dogs whenever we're taking them either either to the groomers or getting the nails done, whatever it is, yeah.

Josh Shaw 1:41:25
Well, here's that. Here's Wisdom literature, Proverbs, chapter 19, verse 15, says laziness casts one into a deep sleep, and an idle person will suffer hunger. Yep. You know. And I think encouragement to us, even as content creators is, What if one day we grow too lazy who we're doing a work that God has ordained for us? Right now, if we grow lazy with it now, there's a difference between growing rate, growing lazy and resting. That's a whole nother episode topic. There's a difference between laziness and resting, right? But if we grow lazy, if Stephen just says, I've already made all this content, I'm not going to post it anymore, like I'm not going to post today, but then says I'm not going to post today and the next day and the next day and the next day, that's just laziness at that point, because God has gifted you to do something to quest givers guide, and if you grow complacent in it, you're missing an opportunity to to, one, obey the Holy Spirit, and two, watch what the Holy Spirit's going to do through you. So I think, as we remember this, and remember that God is with us, like Steve, like Stephen, through questrovers, he's not preaching the gospel. You know, I'm saying, like, this is a brother in Christ that's not preaching the gospel to this content. It's strictly D and D, right? Like, that's but regardless, God has inspired you to do something in this community, and God is saying, Stephen as you're going and doing and teaching, I'm with you.

Stephen Kachur 1:43:07
Well, you say there's a there's a question that you had written down of the stuff that we're going to talk about that we didn't talk about. And I'm glad, actually, that you just said that. So you said one of your questions says, What does it look like in the TTRPG community? And you're just talking about the passages in general, going into making, making disciples and X, Y and Z. And I think it doesn't have to. It can look like many different things. It can look like this format, where it is strictly like, Hey, you are coming here to listen about D and D, but also to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ. It can also look like, like you said, what I'm doing where, maybe not inherently or directly, is preaching the gospel, but there's a lot of, there's a lot that can come out of just showing the love of Jesus Christ, like we were talking about before, and that can be in any way. I mean, how many times at work or in public or whatever, somebody has come up to you and you're like, you know what? Like, you seem really like, chill about things, like, what's up and, and then that gives you the opportunity to go, you know, it's really just God, like, that's the only way I have peace. I know, like, and Josh, I don't mean to out you, but we live, there's a lot of anxiety that goes on our lives. And there is nothing that has given me more peace when I'm going through those times than knowing like I've got Jesus,

Josh Shaw 1:44:33
no, you're not outing me like that's not outing me that's that's factual, you know, I I mean D and D in the not trying to be cheesy, but like, D and D saved my marriage, and not in the sense that the physical game saved my marriage, but the community of believers. I mean, I literally drove to Stevens house and was like, guess what? And from. It was just love and acceptance, you know, and that's the important part about going is because as we go into our respective communities for DND and you build relationships, it is so much more than just a game at this point, it is so much more than just storytelling, when you carry the gospel, when you go, when you teach, and you remember that God is with you, you begin to develop a community that you can lean on for spiritual counsel. You can lean on a game to where you can say, I'm here with my brothers in Christ, and I'm just going to have fun role playing, and we are going to just be here in the moment, and we play and we say, I am with you. I am with you. Well, I'd say it's a pretty good place to wrap at that point wrap, but I'm excited, Steven, why don't you promote yourself? Why don't you

Stephen Kachur 1:45:54
promote your socials? How to find you, where we can find you. So that way, after all this conversation, people know where to look. Yeah, 100% so you can find me on YouTube and Instagram, both at quest givers guide. Quest givers guide, all one word. Stay tuned. So currently, my Instagram has you get shorts on my Instagram and YouTube, I post a little bit more on my Instagram, some extra stuff over there. I will next month, start posting some long form content. So make sure you check out both, and follow and subscribe to both. And I got some I got some really cool stuff, stuff in the works, maybe even some giveaways coming up, so see what happens there. We

Tony Benda 1:46:29
can't do like merch giveaways or anything like that, folks, because Steven has yet to send me his digital files. So we could start doing some merch. I have commercial embroidery machines and T shirt printing stuff. I have the capability of giving him merch, but I'm asking the audience, the listeners, to hold him accountable. Leave comments say, Hey, where's the merch at? Bro, it's

Stephen Kachur 1:46:54
gonna happen. And Tony, I'm gonna send it to you later today. I would, by the way, which is what I told him, like three weeks

Tony Benda 1:47:01
ago, what he has stated multiple times now, I went for accountability sake.

Josh Shaw 1:47:05
I would bet $20 that it's not sent for another two or three weeks. I will bet you $20

Stephen Kachur 1:47:11
richer. But I got some cool stuff coming up for Gen contu. Got some really cool ideas going on there, and, yeah, I'm excited for where things are

Tony Benda 1:47:20
gonna go. It'll be awesome. Yeah, we're the three of us are gonna be a Gen Con, and then Aaron, my brother, your brother in law, we're gonna be hitting up a Gen Con, and we will have merch. By the way, both of both of us, dungeons and disciples and quest givers guide, are probably gonna have some merch at that

Josh Shaw 1:47:35
point, hopefully. And if you're going to Gen Con, let us know. Want to meet up with you, reach out

Stephen Kachur 1:47:40
and Josh will look more related to them, but I promise I am related to it a lot more than me. To be honest, Josh's

Tony Benda 1:47:47
ginger beard looks very much like me and my brother, so all brothers, at least by blood. I'm the odd uncle of the family. It's true. You're not odd. You're just ginger. No, he's odd.

Josh Shaw 1:47:58
But we will for those that, if they have a hard time finding the content on YouTube, Instagram, all that we will put those at the in the description, Episode description as well, and then Tony, I'm terrible also promoting our own which is fine, that's what I'm here for. So we are also going to promote our content through Tony. And yeah, so you can find our stuff at quest givers. No, I'll shout

Tony Benda 1:48:20
it out one more time. Quest givers guide. Look them up on YouTube and Instagram. It's amazing. Our stuff is dungeons and disciples on Facebook and Instagram. We are at dungeons and with the word spelled out, disciples. And then we have our Gmail is dungeons disciples@gmail.com We've been getting quite a few messages recently. It's incredible. It is so much fun talking to people and actually like enjoying this community. It's it's a very like encouraging thing.

Stephen Kachur 1:48:50
Can I shout you guys out too? Yeah. So they have been doing such an awesome thing. I got to experience this firsthand at a convention, or not a convention, a conference that me and Josh went to and he was able to, through the platform, be able to share with somebody who had a, I don't want to say a tainted view, but a little bit of a tainted view on Dungeons and Dragons and the idea of it. And literally, by the beginning of it, he was like, yeah, there's no way. Like, that's not really, like, a godly thing. And by the end of it, he was like, you know, you've given me a lot to think about, and you guys are doing such an awesome thing, and I'm super proud of you guys, and I'm really happy for the direction that it's going for you guys, and

Josh Shaw 1:49:32
you guys are doing it. It only goes up from here. It's only gonna get bigger. We're changing

Tony Benda 1:49:36
the perspective one listener at a time. I'm also gonna throw this out

Josh Shaw 1:49:39
there, when you look up, if you were to type on Google, I just did this week, just on whatever. But I was like, just like, I was like, What is a Christian D and D podcast? And when the AI generation will say another podcast on there, but we're also listed on the list. So yay. Ai knows who we

Tony Benda 1:49:57
are. There is another one out there called of. We're in Legends, we will find you. I just started listening to them, and I'm really liking it so far. There's like nine players. I'm like, How is this a thing? And it actually works for their table.

Josh Shaw 1:50:08
If you're actually listening, we really want to connect. By the way, we also have another a prospect, another Christian podcast, and prospect that we're going to be talking to them as well. We're going to be talking to them soon

Tony Benda 1:50:19
too. Folks, there's some fun stuff coming. I'm so excited for where podcasting as a whole is going.

Josh Shaw 1:50:25
But why don't you pray us out today? Absolutely,

Stephen Kachur 1:50:30
God, just thank you for blessing the conversation here. God, and I just want to pray for the listeners. God, anyone that may be listening, that may have questions, God, I just want to pray that you will just encourage them to reach out. I just pray that you will just continue to let us be lights of this world, God, and as we go out and make disciples for you, I just pray that you will just equip us and let us take that equipment from you, God. Let us make sure we're in the word God, and we're praying and seeking forward and not backing down to difficult decisions or uncomfortable situations, God, I just want to again. Just thank you for your resurrection, God, and just thank you for the scripture where you are always with us, God, and one day you're going to come back and take us from this place. And we love you very much. And we just pray that we have good days you need to pray.

Josh Shaw 1:51:14
Amen. Amen. Thanks, guys. Thanks.