Today's podcast episode is all about Kevin Wilson, better known as “Chaplain Chai”. This is a story about a man who turned his passion for making chai into a powerful tool to spread love and encouragement to millions of people in the digital space. Kevin is a pastor who realized that people were starving for kindness and positivity online. So he decided to use his chai-making skills, a simple extension of who he is and what he's passionate about, to connect with people and grow an audience. Through his unique approach, Kevin has been able to reach millions of people with his message of love and encouragement. In this episode, we'll hear from Kevin himself as he shares his journey and the lessons he's learned along the way. We'll also explore the impact that he's had on people's lives and the role that simple acts of kindness can play in the digital world. So sit back, relax, and join us as we dive into the inspiring story of Kevin Wilson and how he's using his passion to make a difference in the world.
Visit Chaplain Chai here:
Tiktok- https://www.tiktok.com/@crossculturekev?lang=en
Instagram- https://www.instagram.com/crossculturekev/
Youtube- https://www.youtube.com/user/spencer050890
Blog- https://crossculturechristian.substack.com/p/coming-soon?r=3yxcd&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
to get the free training, send me an email at hello@digitalmissionspodcast.com
[00:00:00] Justin: It has never been easier to reach millions with the gospel than ever before. And in this podcast, I wanna give you the tools that you need to do exactly this. My name is Justin Khoe and you are listening to the Digital Missions podcast. Yo, Justin here and you are listening to the Digital Missions podcast.
[00:00:19] Our goal is to equip passers like you with the skills needed to reach your first million people with the gospel. And I know you're already thinking to yourself, how exactly are we going to that? And the reality is that there's no one single method [00:00:30] for doing so. Preaching the gospel is much like David fighting Goliath.
[00:00:33] In order for you to be successful, you're going to have to fight in your own armor. My guest, for today's episode, calls himself Chaplain Chai. Kevin Wilson's TikTok videos share his life philosophies, stories, and experiments with chai to his over 369,000 followers. Up until his most recent transplant to Andrews University where he is currently serving as the digital and social media coordinator for the Office of University communication,
[00:00:56] kevin was a boots on the ground pastor in addition to being a [00:01:00] content creator. Our conversation for today's centers around the importance of documenting and sharing your life story if you value genuine connections. Why? Because Kevin believes that your digital presence is simply an extension of who you are and what you're passionate about.
[00:01:13] This is the Kevin Wilson story.
[00:01:16] Kevin: So from the time I was, I would say 11 or 12 years old, I've kind of believed this idea that creation is the best way to learn anything from the time I was a little kid. Like I always enjoyed [00:01:30] just consuming content, consuming information, and I would, my dad would tell me like, connect
[00:01:35] different things. And I would, I would love to feature talks at church. And so when I first came to the States when I was 18 years old, actually 19 years old, I wanted to find a way to record my experience in a meaningful way. And I was inspired by people like you, Justin, and other people who were making content online.
[00:01:52] There was meaningful content and I was just like, you know what? I just, I, I want to just do things. And so I remember my freshman year, I, I started the [00:02:00] website, crossculturechristian.com. Even the reason why I called it Cross Culture Christian, because at the time everybody kind of seemed, seemed to have some sort of a brand.
[00:02:08] And I was like, Kevin Wilson. I'm like, eh, it's like kevinwilson.com. It's like a, that's probably one of like millions of Kevin Wilson's out there. And so I was just like, all right, let me see. What do I wanna talk about? and I was like, and, and who I am who, who, and who's the type of person I am. And so I, I didn't think too much about it.
[00:02:25] I just said I'm a cross-cultural person and I'm a Christian. And [00:02:30] so let's do, make a website crossculturchristian.com. The cross culture piece comes from my upbringing. I was born in Sri Lanka. I lived there till I was about 12 years old. Then I moved to Oman in the Gulf region of the middle east.
[00:02:41] And I lived there till I was 18, came to the States when I was 18, so I'm what they call a third culture kid. And after I came coming to the States, I lived in multiple places within the country. Then I went to Lebanon, came here, and now I'm married to a Cuban Chilean wife of five years. And so my, the consistent
[00:02:58] trend of my life is [00:03:00] that I am a conglomeration of the many cultures that I've been a part of and the, and another theme from my life is that I am a follower of Jesus. And so cross culture Christian was born and so I started a blog, started write stuff cuz I enjoyed writing, didn't know how edit videos, did not know how to make a YouTube video, did not know how to use a camera.
[00:03:19] I just made vlogs. And then, YouTube was still now coming up as kind of a tool, not just a, a place where people watch videos, but as a place where people are actually creating some meaningful content. And [00:03:30] then that's when I realized, you know what I, I want to start making videos. So I just started a YouTube channel based on my Gmail account that I have, and started to put stuff out there.
[00:03:39] I didn't think too much about it. I was like, okay, let me see if I can connect different things. And I, I, I would make videos about faith and contextualize it and faith according to the Marvel Universe. So Adventism, according to the X-Men series, cuz I really enjoyed marvel movies and stuff like, and I wanted to make vlogs because I was inspired by Justin and Trey Van Camp and all these [00:04:00] guys, and so I got into vlogging.
[00:04:02] For me, the thing was I want to just imitate. I want imitate and then innovate. It's so good because I didn't know anything out there. The originality was a myth. I still believe this. I decided kind of originality, like just do something original for, for the most part is a mid. and I think what's original is like your, your own unique spin on the content that's there.
[00:04:21] And so I started to make content there. That's what kind of helped me go from getting to content creation. As a pastor, I just wanted an avenue to [00:04:30] process ideas and I wanted an avenue to learn the things that I wanted to learn. And so content creation, creating things was my way of doing it.
[00:04:37] Justin: How does the more refined version of the cross-cultural Christian, the CEO of Chai, how do you look back on your old videos and what is the sentiment there?
[00:04:46] Kevin: When I look back at my old videos, there's a part of me. That's like, oh my gosh, did I really say that? Oh wow. What did I think about when I edited that video? Like that pacing. But soon after that thought is another thought. It's like, [00:05:00] Kevin, I'm so glad you started so long ago. And even though I cringe at the form and the content of my videos, I am inspired by the intention, uh, with which I started the videos.
[00:05:12] Like I actually enjoy. I'm a person who enjoys washing. The past videos that I've done. It's really good to see. It's really empowering to see that, like you started this a while ago and you kept going at it mean it's been wonderful, man.
[00:05:24] Justin: Now, if I remember the original vision when you launched your YouTube, there was some vision of grandeur.
[00:05:29] You're gonna reach [00:05:30] a large number of people. You wanted to reach millions of people. But if I remember correctly, your primary audience were the kids in your youth group, right? You were making videos for a very specific audience and I'm, I'm curious. When you were creating these videos, how did you get around the space of justifying the time and the investment and the amount of energy you're putting into it, and what, what made it worth it when you saw the response of your, your youth?
[00:05:54] Kevin: It was definitely investment. When you first start, there's a huge roadblock. You, you met [00:06:00] with a, you know what, one of these authors, uh, I don't, I think it's called Steven, Steven Presfield in the book The War of Art. When he talks about how there's this thing when you step sit down to do art and you sit down and do meaningful work, you are encounter with what he calls the resistance.
[00:06:18] And the resistance can take many different forms. And so for me it was in the form of tech, it was in the form of an imposter syndrome. It was in the form of [00:06:30] inadequacy and not feeling like you need to be doing this, not deserving of the attention. All these different things. So but what kept me going, couple of things.
[00:06:39] Number one, the fact that as soon as I saw that there were people outside of my youth group who were affected by this. People who didn't have a vested interested in me. They was like, you know what? That was really good. We want more of that. That was nice. So once I started to see, this is like, okay, this is solving problems not just for my youth group, but also for people outside of this place.
[00:06:59] That was [00:07:00] encouraging, that was empowering. I kept going. The other part was I realized how fun it was to create something and put it out into the world, and I fell in love with that process. I fell. I was addicted to that feeling of fun. Someone asked Djokovic, the tennis player. How'd you become one of the greatest tennis players that has ever played the game? And the reporter
[00:07:22] was kind of shocked at Djokovic's response because it was not as profound that he was expecting it to be, [00:07:30] because Djokovic basically said, I'm really obsessed with hitting that ball, and that's all he said. Like, I am absolutely addicted to the feeling that I get when I hit that ball. And the ball makes contact with the strings.
[00:07:43] It's not that I am, I dream about making videos every day or whatever, but I am addicted. Like I actually, I would say that I'm really addicted to the feeling of just creating something, putting stuff together, and just putting it out into the world and see what happens to it. And so...
[00:07:57] Justin: what about the creative process that, that, [00:08:00] that lights you up?
[00:08:01] Kevin: Yeah, so for me, bro, that's a good question. I think for me, what keeps me going is like aha moments from people, like when they say things like, man, I've never seen it that way before. And also, What keeps me going is at the end of the creative process, the thing sticks in your brain like you are able to now bring it back up whenever you can.
[00:08:22] And so knowledge, like information is formation... or information automatically leads to formation. That if you just consume content [00:08:30] it automatically, it's gonna just download it, your system, and then you just kinda know this stuff. No, there is a. , there's a gap. There's a small, a very important piece between information and formation that is application or creation.
[00:08:42] You take that stuff, make it into something, then it sticks in your brain. And also what actually does is it actually, at least for me, It creates patterns of thought and so you are able to bring up stuff and you're also able to create new neural networks with, with current knowledge, with your previous knowledge.
[00:08:59] And then over [00:09:00] time you have like something amazing. And so it also kind of develops this kind of lens through which you can now see different things creatively. So you can, you get to look at your life creatively. And so one of the, one of the bread and butter of my content right now is storytelling. And so I share a lot of stories when I make.
[00:09:16] So I, so for me, I, I've had to collect stories, so I've had to learn how to package ideas in the form of stories. And to contextualize that ideas in the form of stories of these storytelling principles. And this is something that I've been working on for, for a long time. [00:09:30] And the more you do that, the more you realize how beautiful your life is, the more you realize that there's so much meaning in the mundane.
[00:09:36] Like, I know why I'm getting into kind of philosophical, like, preachy stuff here, but like this is actually what keeps me going in the creative process. Uh, because, because of all the things that it does to your mind and your brain, but also to other people especially, but also to you and your relationships.
[00:09:50] Justin: This is something that I absolutely love. Kevin's content, his ability to find meaning in the mundane, and I think that this is something that will preach to a lot of us. Now, I know that when I do [00:10:00] an audit of my own life, I don't often feel like I have the most exciting lifestyle ever. I often wonder to myself, who would care to hear my stories or my thoughts, but what Kevin seems to be drilling in on is that falling in love with the process
[00:10:12] rather than falling in love with the results makes all the difference. Now, the results can be great and all, but it seems that one of the major benefits of content creation and possibly even preaching the gospel is that there's a transformation that takes place within those who are on the journey. That is to say that one of the biggest blessings in showing [00:10:30] up online is that God often uses it to grow you yourself,
[00:10:33] the person. Can you talk to me about some of the challenges you face for the discouragement that you're weathering and ultimately what brought you back to the table to keep saying, you know what, even though it's not quite where I would like it to be yet, it's still worth it. I'm gonna keep investing my time and energy here.
[00:10:48] Kevin: Uh, I think there are a couple of different things that, uh, That kind of almost prevented me from continuing, uh, during my YouTube journey. First of all, it was just a time thing. I had [00:11:00] be more intentional about my time, and so I wasn't doing a good enough job of doing that, and so I realized that there was less margin for my life and so.
[00:11:10] So that kind of paused some of the creative efforts there. I also saw that the vlogs, at least from me, from my end, they were not giving the intended results that I wanted. Like I wanted results quickly, and so I didn't have patience to actually keep doing it, because I didn't see the results fast enough.
[00:11:27] In hindsight, I realized that I was [00:11:30] kind of imprisoned by my own ideas of what success looks like. I wanted to get there faster. I wanted to have a, a growing, uh, massive subscriber base. I wanted videos to go viral, and when things didn't really happen like that, I just kind of like, kind of slowed down my roll.
[00:11:45] But I kept going because encouragement from my church, from my family, and then I still wanted a place to process and share ideas and help people, like, deep down, I still want to do that. [00:12:00] And the, the story that I told myself was, okay, I have skills. I have video editing skills. I know how to edit. I, I know how to film things.
[00:12:08] I know how to script an idea, and I just wanna keep, let's just keep doing it. So let's just put in the reps, you know, and yeah. And so that's kind of what I did. This is all, again, I should mention, this is all before the TikTok. A lot of people think this is after the TikTok, but this is all before.
[00:12:23] Justin: Okay. Okay. So give us, give us a little bit more specifics on the details there.
[00:12:27] How many, how, how many years were you doing the YouTube [00:12:30] thing? Talk to me, how many videos was that? How many subscribers? Like, give us just kind of a ballpark of the snapshot of YouTube career as it were.
[00:12:39] Kevin: Man. Okay, so I think I started my YouTube in Oceanside when I was a pastor. So 2018, I would say 2000...
[00:12:50] I had a YouTube channel from 2015. Really, honestly. But when I started to create consistently with kind of an intention or with the weekly rhythm, [00:13:00] that was probably 2000 and. 18 and how many videos I probably made about, I want to say about about a hundred videos from then till now.
[00:13:10] Justin: Goodness.
[00:13:11] Kevin: Which is not a lot
[00:13:12] It's not a lot.
[00:13:13] Justin:
[00:13:13] It's a lot on the YouTube side of things. I get how it's not a lot on TikTok, but on YouTube, like how many I, I don't know. For me, my, my early videos were 10, 20 hours worth of editing alone. Like how, how many hours would you guesstimate per video would you put in?
[00:13:26] Kevin: Oh my goodness, dude. I mean it again, it depended on what system I had.
[00:13:29] [00:13:30] Like dude, I was editing for the first two years, bro. I was editing on my MacBook Air like 2013 MacBook Air and yeah, no hard drive, no nothing. Spinning Wheel of death. I didn't know I was using iMovie. I was using iMovie for like a year and a half, no, I didn't have money to buy Final Cut Pro, Adobe. And so I had, uh, then I, then this DaVinci Resolve came to play, and so I started to use DaVinci Resolve, and I didn't know, one, [00:14:00] I didn't know anything about DaVinci Resolve, but, uh, I, I just YouTubed, I YouTubed the tutorials.
[00:14:05] Yeah, it took me a long time videos, man. Those early days were, I didn't know anything about lighting. I didn't know anything about filming. I didn't know anything about, uh, LUTS and all that stuff. Till today, I mean, I'm, I'm not very great at all those things, but I've definitely gotten a little better than how I was before.
[00:14:23] Yeah.
[00:14:24] Justin: If there's
[00:14:25] something to learn from Kevin's story so far is that the secret to becoming an overnight success is [00:14:30] years and years of practice and consistency and trial and error. Not getting discouraged by the results or the lack of results, but choosing to learn along the. This resiliency, this consistency would ultimately be rewarded when Kevin applied all the things he'd been learning to a new platform that you might have heard called TikTok.
[00:14:48] All right, so at some point in your journey, there's this new kid on the block called TikTok. Talk to me about how you heard about it. What was it that you heard, and why were you so interested in giving that thing a shot when already [00:15:00] you're, you're stretching yourself thin with the church, with the family, with your YouTube ministry.
[00:15:05] What, why TikTok? Why is this so appealing to you? Why do you lean in?
[00:15:09] Kevin: So as I was making vlogs, TikTok, people started talking about TikTok, my youth group specifically, and they were into, they were onto TikTok and everybody was talking about TikTok, this, TikTok that. I was curious, but I never gotten into it because at the time, this was back in 2019, I thought that TikTok was a kids app and everybody was just like dancing.
[00:15:29] And I was like, [00:15:30] I'm not, I'm not dancing. I'm not trying to do anything, anything of that. Also, I was, do YouTube. I don't have time for another thing and. One of my youth said, Hey bus Kevin, you should just get on it and just see what happens. You know, it'll be really cool to see like someone like you to be on there.
[00:15:44] And I'm like, ah, no, bro. Anyhow, I caved. I downloaded the app and I wanted to just see what, what it was all about. Two hours later after scrolling, I was just like, wait a second. This is crazy because suck me in, man. Suck me in. I was going through videos [00:16:00] and I just realized how the app was so well designed.
[00:16:05] I was so impressed by how the app was well designed that I actually made a YouTube video connecting TikTok to the importance of leadership. But I was just so inspired by this app. I was like, wow, this is. I learned so many things about, there's so many leadership principles that I learned about how this app is designed that I wanted to share with the world.
[00:16:24] And so I went back and then I deleted the app. I didn't wanna do anything about it, but then I realized people, [00:16:30] this was getting a little bit more attention. So I decided, you know, one day to download the app back and then decided to actually document my child making process. And so when I first came to the States, I wanted to, I wanted to connect to a sense of home, sense of belonging.
[00:16:44] And so I started to make Chai as a way to just connect to my roots. So one day I decided, you know what? I'm just going to record my chai making experience. And I put it on Instagram. I had on Instagram by the time it was like less than a thousand followers, just my friends and my family. And so what I did was actually take screenshots [00:17:00] of my chai making process, put it as Instagram stories.
[00:17:02] So I decided, you know what? I don't have time to make a whole different video. Let me just take screenshots of the stories, put a voice over over it with this, with like someone mic like this and put some scripting and then put it on. TikTok did not have any expectations. Did not... I had zero goals except to just put it out there and see what happens.
[00:17:25] Nothing happens for the next couple of day... next 24 hours, but after the 24 hours, [00:17:30] my notifications start to blow up like crazy. And it was first time that this thing, I realized the how, like what it means to go viral. And so within like a matter of a week, I think I had about 300,000 for uh, 300,000 views on that.
[00:17:46] And a lot of questions. My comments were flooded, and then I was like, okay, maybe I should just do one more of these and see what happens and so, I did one more. Didn't go viral, but it definitely hit [00:18:00] like a nerve. And I did one more after that, one more after that. And so it's, TikTok was a journey of just like pure experimentation, did not plan on it becoming what it is,
[00:18:15] but that's how I got TikTok.
[00:18:17] Justin: What do you
[00:18:18] think it was about those early videos that connected with your audience? Because, cause I look at your videos now and they're, they're very insightful, they're very reflective, they're very intentional about connecting themes that to, I [00:18:30] think the casual viewer would be completely unconnected.
[00:18:33] And so I'm guessing at the early stages of your TikTok, you're just making chai. Maybe you're talking a little bit about, you know, what you're seeing in life and some of your musings on life. Do you have a sense of what it was
[00:18:44] that drew people in initially?
[00:18:46] Kevin: I didn't realize this at the time, but there was a gross misunderstanding of what Chai is and was.
[00:18:52] And so a lot of people thought that chai was this thing that they get from Starbucks or the chai tea latte, you know, which I didn't know. I just thought that people, there was [00:19:00] common knowledge that people just knew that Chai was from, from South Asia and a predominantly South Asian drink. And so the comments were like, is is a powder?
[00:19:07] I didn't realize that this is something that you can make from scratch. Oh my gosh, this is crazy. I have the stuff and... Okay, so there is a definitely knowledge gap here. This is interesting. Then I started to make more content, and then what actually happened was I feel like, I didn't plan on doing this, but I dueted a video or a TikTok of somebody [00:19:30] making at one of my chai recipes, and I was just kind of responding to them in a way that like, that I would talk to somebody else would make in front of me.
[00:19:38] Well, little did I realize that that was a, a thing that nobody has seen before because that video went viral. That TikTok went viral and the comments started to come up. It's like, wow, I wish my mother would talk to me like this, or my dad would talk to me like this. Cuz it was, you know, I, I didn't want it to, I didn't mean to be positive, but it just came off as very positive.
[00:19:58] It came off as a kind of a caring [00:20:00] expression of, of somebody just kind of coaching through that chai experience. I did not plan on doing any of this stuff, but this is just how I was and... And then so people wanted more of that. And then there people would even ask me to say things like, can you just tell, can you just make a video of just saying this, that I'm proud of you and that you're gonna do well and you are going to be okay today?
[00:20:22] And I did that one, I did that. I just said, okay, I'll just do it. And that thing went viral. And I'm just like, [00:20:30] what is going on right now? And then I realized that there was like this. There was kind of a lack of a meaningful expression of care online. TikTok was such a, it can be such a vitriolic space and where people are just
[00:20:44] putting each other down. And so there's this guy who's, who's, who was being positive, I suppose, and, and they were like, okay, we need more of this stuff. And so it came to a point where I was just like, you know what? I don't wanna just talk about chai. Like there's so many things that I wanna talk about.
[00:20:58] Then I started [00:21:00] to experiment with storytelling. There were people at the time who were also making food and they were talking about their lives. And I was really inspired. I was so fascinated by the connection that stories created between myself and a person, a stranger that I had no idea about and, but I felt a sense of closeness and I said, you know what?
[00:21:20] Let me experiment a little bit about with that. And so I just made Chai and I would put the recipe in the comments or as, as captions in [00:21:30] the, in the video, but I would have, I, I'll share a story from my South Asian experience and that's when things started to get really, really interesting because there were people coming off from all walks of life and things like, man, then they were saying things like, Kevin, I thought I was the only one.
[00:21:45] Like I thought, I thought I was the only one who went through that.
[00:21:47] Justin: What was that story you told?
[00:21:50] Kevin: Man, the, these are responses that I get from like, almost every story that I share most of the time. I mean, the story that I'm thinking about right now is like when I share my immigrant ex, my immigrant [00:22:00] experience, I, when I share about my grandfather being a tea plantation worker and being Tamil in Sri Lanka, experiencing racism.
[00:22:07] So when Black Lives Matter and all these, when the, when the racial reckoning happened in the United States, I wanted to share how I thought about race and, and, and, and a sense of, humanness our connectedness. And so I made chai and I talked about racism, and I talked about how, you know, spices are meant to be crushed, but people are not meant to be crushed.
[00:22:25] And so I used chai as kind of a, an allegory to talk about all [00:22:30] things human.
[00:22:32] Justin: It's easy to underestimate the type of connection that can happen through a medium like TikTok. After all, they're just short videos about people's stories. Whoop de doo. How much impact can it actually make? As it turns out, what sometimes happens in Kevin's dms and comment sections can actually be deeper than the average conversation in a church classroom.
[00:22:51] Who would've thought, people are hungry for deep and meaningful connections online? You've mentioned a handful of times now, the storytelling, the [00:23:00] content being a bridge for you to connect with individuals in your community. What are some of those stories of, of connection and deep impact that really just make you smile,
[00:23:09] Kevin: tell you a story
[00:23:10] right now. I get a DM on my Instagram one day. This was about three years ago. All caps ARE YOU ADVENTIST. Question mark, question mark, question mark. Question mark and
[00:23:24] question mark.
[00:23:25] Justin: Okay. Uh, this is a masterclass for me cuz I get that question almost every day?
[00:23:29] Kevin: [00:23:30] Yeah, . I don't know if it's gonna be a master class, so, but uh, man, that's when I, so I'll, I just said, okay, yeah, I am Adventist.
[00:23:38] And then this person came back and said, I am shocked again, all caps. I said, well, why are you shocked? And he said, because of where I heard about you. and she said, I'm a former Adventist, and I heard about you, an Adventist pastor through this podcast I've been listening to. It's one of my favorite podcasts, but I was shocked that they [00:24:00] referred, uh, mentioned an Adventist pastor, this podcast.
[00:24:03] Now I'm really curious because I didn't, I didn't remember being on a podcast in the last couple of weeks. And so I said, well, please feel free to send me the link to this podcast, uh, or podcast episode. And she said, okay, but I'll warn you, you are an Adventist pastor. You will not want to listen to the whole episode.
[00:24:24] And I said, at this point, am I thinking, I am definitely gonna listen to it now. You should have led with that. [00:24:30] Anyhow, she said, if you don't wanna listen to the whole episode, I want you to fast forward to this time stamp and then start listening. I said, okay. I looked, I clicked on the Spotify link. The link opens up to a podcast, and then I, as soon as I saw the title, and as soon as I read the bio, whatever. I instantly realized why she was shocked.
[00:24:52] Because this podcast was a podcast on witchcraft. It was on witchcraft co-hosted by [00:25:00] two self-proclaimed witches. Who are 30 somethings? Millennials and they are witches. And then every, every epi, every season and every episode, there was a deep dive into a specific practice of the occult or a feature of witchcraft.
[00:25:16] And they would, they would talk about it for at least 50 minutes per episode. And there was like five seasons of this. So I was fascinated by this, but I fast forward to the timestamp and I start listening. Towards the end of the episode, they talk about... [00:25:30] they share their sparks, and a spark is something or someone over the past week that has impacted them.
[00:25:37] And so for one of them, Corey, she said, Hey, I have a spark, and his name is Kevin Wilson. He goes by the name Cross Culture Christian, and he's on TikTok making chai. And then she goes on to say, She was so inspired and that she was struck and that she was touched [00:26:00] by the meaningful expression of care through Chai.
[00:26:03] And she thinks that chai, for her chai is a ritual for her. It was, it's a ritual that it sensitizes her to her humanness and her connectedness to the earth. And, and so she's like, and I so appreciate, uh, pastor Kevin Wilson for, for, for sharing all this stuff with us. As a matter of fact, guys, go and listen to him cross culture Christian, if you're listening right now, I just wanna say I love you.
[00:26:26] You're doing amazing work. Thank you for doing that. [00:26:30] And I'm listening to this, and I'm just like, what did I just hear? Right? This is insane. I mean, a Seventh Day Adventist pastor endorsed by a witch, that's not something that I would've expected to happen in my life. So anyhow, after that, I set a DM to Cory and Deta.
[00:26:49] Both of them on their podcast. And I said, Hey, this is Kevin from Cross Culture Christian, can we talk and we have a chat. I was really moved by what you said. And they responded back. And so yeah, we got on a [00:27:00] pod. We got on a Zoom call. I asked them, why would you endorse someone who's a, who was living a different lifestyle than you are in your own podcast, whatever.
[00:27:11] And I said, and she, they said, They started to share their stories. They grew up Christian, they were Lutherans, they went to Sunday school. There were people who were, who were making... Ministering to their own congregations, but later on, some stuff happened between them at the church leadership and [00:27:30] they, the church ostracized them.
[00:27:32] They completely rejected both of them and both of them. They left the church and they were really angered by the way that these, that these families treated them. And long story. They found meaning in witchcraft that was painful to hear all that stuff in the, in the way that the church treated them. But what's really, really interesting is what, how they talked about Jesus.
[00:27:52] Because you see, even though they were part, they were witchcraft, they were witches, and they self proclaimed witches the way they talked about Jesus almost drew me to [00:28:00] tears because they talked about Jesus in a way that was a Jesus that was unshackled by institutional religion. It was unshackled by colonialism.
[00:28:09] It was just a Jesus who was, who said she seemed to be the embodiment of everything that they. Knew to be true about the human experience and they wanted to be true about the human experience, that humans should be loved, they should be empathy, they should be compassion and fleshed. And that's what they saw Jesus as.
[00:28:25] And they were talking about Jesus in such a profound way. And I was just like, wow, that is [00:28:30] so interesting. And that's when I realized that. God is not Adventist and God is not Christian. And that God can exist even beyond the borders and the institutions that we put him in and the theological constructs that we put him in.
[00:28:44] And He's... the Holy Spirit is working everywhere. And so that's, that inspired even more of me to contextualize... contextualizing my stuff to, to bring meaning to people's lives. And I, I realized that my job is to help people connect with, [00:29:00] connect to themselves and, and connect to my content and let the Holy Spirit and God do the conversion bit.
[00:29:06] Justin: Imagine that!
[00:29:07] God working through woke witches on TikTok to teach pastor Kevin Wilson a bit about His grandeur and beauty and his love for humanity. Talk about a really weird sentence to say out loud, but I guess it's another way of saying that God works in mysterious ways. You see whether it's explicitly preaching the gospel, praying for people online, or simply communicating meaningful expressions of care through a cup of chai, [00:29:30] I believe that the Holy Spirit is moving powerfully online.
[00:29:33] Every day digital missionaries like Kevin Wilson are out there sharing the good, good news. And if you've been looking for a way to get started yourself, I'd love to send you a free training seminar. To help you get started today, all you have to do is send me an email at hello@digitalmissionspodcast.com, and it'll be my gift to you.
[00:29:50] Listen, if you found value in the show, do us a solid, tell a friend, leave us a review on Apple Podcast and join the growing movement of digital missionaries who are taking the internet by by [00:30:00] storm. Who knows, you may just change the population of heaven with your next post. As always, my name is Justin Khoe, and you've been listening to the Digital Missions podcast.