1:11

Welcome to the Land Within Us , a podcast serving

1:14

Christian men who are hungry to be the leaders God

1:16

intends you to be . I'm your host , chris Granger

1:18

. Let's jump in All right , guys . Joshua

1:21

1-9 . We're going to have a lot of fun with this

1:23

one this week . Guys , this is our meet-up episode

1:25

, but you know we're not going to go any further without the scripture

1:28

first . Okay , so that verse says

1:30

have I not commanded you , be

1:32

strong and courageous , do

1:35

not be afraid , do not be discouraged

1:37

, for the Lord , your God , will

1:39

be with you wherever you go . Now

1:41

, guys , go back and check out the spiritual kickoff

1:44

. I unpacked that verse at length , give

1:46

you some really good insights leading us into this conversation

1:48

and , quite frankly , this is one little bit

1:50

different that we've had here on

1:52

the Land Within Us , because we're talking about an area

1:55

I know many of you guys struggle with your

1:57

kids and devices and trying to make sure

1:59

we put the right content in front of them . Well

2:01

, I got approached by

2:03

this gentleman his name is Brent Dusing and his

2:06

team approached me and they wanted to come on the Land Within

2:08

Us and talk about their solution

2:10

that true play and I

2:13

was very hesitant . I'm just going to be honest , I was hesitant

2:15

because you know what I'm pretty anti-making

2:18

sure that we're not putting bad content in front of our

2:20

kids , and I'm trying to actually have device free as much

2:22

as we can with our crew . I was like , huh

2:24

, let me check this , let me pray about this , let

2:26

me check it out . And after looking at it I

2:29

was like , yeah , we need to

2:31

have this conversation . And Brent is just

2:33

what he's done . He's built a gaming platform

2:35

to bring really high quality

2:37

, biblically sound entertainment

2:40

to the kids Well , not

2:42

just to kids , I think you'll see in

2:44

our conversation , it's for anyone out there

2:46

but he's just an amazing guy

2:48

, entrepreneur at heart . He had a

2:52

lot of Christian content through

2:54

another company he worked with called Lightsight

2:56

Games , and so he's just he's

2:58

on fire . He's done a lot of really great things . They

3:00

just launched TruePlay back in

3:02

August of last year . Growth

3:05

has been great . They definitely want to

3:07

keep it going . Lots of new games coming

3:10

out , lots of new resources coming out . He's going to

3:12

talk about all that , but he's

3:14

just got a very interesting

3:16

background Father

3:18

three kids , married for 20 years

3:21

as a master's degree in economics

3:23

from Harvard . So , yes , he was the smartest guy

3:25

on this interview , but that's okay . We

3:27

had a lot of fun . We talked about a lot of different

3:29

things and I was just encouraged out

3:31

there particularly as someone who has four

3:33

kids right now that are just coming up in this

3:36

new , this digital age to know

3:38

that there's companies out there like

3:40

TruePlay that's putting effort

3:42

and intentional

3:44

work behind

3:47

making sure that there's good

3:49

, biblically sound content out there for

3:51

Christian homes . That

3:53

should warm your heart right there . I encourage you listen

3:55

to this one for sure , but then take

3:58

some action . Go check out TruePlay . Try

4:00

it out for a month If you have kids that are on devices

4:02

that he mentioned . 52 and a half hours

4:05

is the average time that the kids are on devices per

4:07

week in the US . That's incredible

4:10

. Well , put some of this content in front of them

4:12

, some biblically based content . So enjoy

4:14

this conversation and see what you can learn and have

4:16

a great time here with Brent Dusing

4:18

. If

4:22

you're a man who's looking for greater spiritual

4:24

guidance into how to become a better leader

4:26

, finding resources that you can

4:28

trust and then implement can be daunting

4:31

For me personally . I thought

4:33

it was a lost cause and I decided to take the

4:35

action , knowing that I wasn't

4:37

alone . It was because of this wide

4:39

gap that we created our line

4:42

within this community and the areas that

4:44

we're helping Christian men grow are incredible

4:46

. For instance , we've built ways

4:48

for guys to lean in and grow through fun

4:50

events like our daily spiritual kickoff

4:53

, where you get that much needed boost

4:55

directly from God's word . Our Bible

4:57

studies that always focus on how to discern

4:59

and apply what we learn , and

5:02

even our amazing form , where you can speak your

5:04

mind without fear of getting shut down or

5:06

judged by the extreme rules of modern day

5:08

social media . On top of all

5:11

that , we know that many men won't

5:13

help overcoming issues and becoming stronger

5:15

in many different areas . That's why

5:17

we created several mastermind groups where

5:19

their iron truly sharpest iron Our

5:22

community is by having a gross

5:24

mindset , accountability , intentionality

5:27

and transparency . In other

5:29

words , just leave Fakie at home and

5:31

come to community just as you are . I

5:34

fully believe what we've built . I see

5:36

the impact it's making on men right now and

5:39

I would love to have you check it out . So

5:41

start your very own 30 day free trial

5:43

today to see how we can help you

5:45

be a better leader . So if

5:47

you're ready to take that first step , head over

5:50

to the lion within us and

5:52

get started . Your journey begins here

5:54

. This is the lion within us , and

5:56

I'll see you inside with them . So

6:01

, brent , welcome to the lion within us . How are you doing today

6:03

, sir ? Doing great , chris . Good to be with you today . I'm

6:06

excited to have you here . I mean , this is the topic we

6:08

haven't even began to touch on the lion within

6:10

us . I'm excited to get into it . But before

6:12

we get there , give us a fun fact about you

6:14

or a little bit about your background . I love our listeners

6:17

and know a little bit more about you .

6:18

Boy fun fact . Gosh

6:22

fun fact Just

6:25

got back from Africa . I got a lot

6:28

of family over there . I spent a lot of time there

6:30

. I had a big , big part of my story . I

6:32

spent a year when

6:34

I was 20 years old worked with homeless people and

6:36

refugees really

6:39

transformative experience . Worked at a church in Johannesburg

6:41

four years after apartheid ended , fast

6:44

ending . Time came

6:46

back two years later , met this beautiful

6:48

girl , wound up getting married

6:51

and

6:53

we've been married , gosh , almost 20 years , three kids

6:55

and we go back

6:57

there to South Africa quite a bit . So

6:59

you know , just a beautiful

7:01

place , great part of my story and a

7:05

lot of people I love over there .

7:07

We just had it . We just actually released

7:09

an interview I did with a gentleman from South

7:11

Africa who's a evangelist out there

7:14

and and doing some great things on YouTube

7:16

. So that's what's his name Daniel

7:18

Maritz . Daniel

7:20

Maritz .

7:21

So you

7:23

know , like your logo , they got a lot of those in

7:26

in real life over there and their natural habitat

7:28

and it is . It is fascinating to see those wild

7:30

animals and their natural habitat and it's it's

7:32

like being on a different planet .

7:34

It's amazing 100% , was it

7:36

a great , great intro something . He had a

7:38

wonderful marriage and for you guys who just

7:40

listened to the show you got to go watch it because when he

7:42

talked about his wife there was a lot of glow

7:44

in your face bands it's something . You have a wonderful marriage

7:47

there . That's great . That's great .

7:49

Yeah , I think you're pretty good , can't , can't , can't . Argue that

7:51

.

7:52

There you go , there you go . Well , let's

7:54

get right into it , because I know you're a little bit short

7:56

on time today . So what is true play

7:58

? Because I mean I've looked into it , I'm so

8:00

excited .

8:01

But yeah , explain to it what our listeners out

8:03

there , what true play , actually is so true

8:05

play is an entertainment platform that's

8:07

built for families , that's

8:09

built with the utmost quality and fun

8:12

and excitement . But everything

8:14

that we do it true play contains God's

8:16

truth . So when I say entertainment platform , it's one

8:18

app on your phone , it's on your iPad

8:21

, it's got games , it's got

8:23

Videos , it's got

8:25

digital comics . Most of the content

8:27

We've produced originally , although

8:29

some of it we've partnered . Some of you dads out

8:31

there you might know the action Bible . The

8:34

action Bible is one of my probably my favorite kids Bible

8:36

. It's literally , you know , two inches

8:38

thick of high quality illustrations

8:40

of the Bible , most

8:43

of the major stories . Anyway , we've got a lot

8:45

of their comics in the app . We also

8:47

partnered with the King's Stone comics , which is an incredible

8:49

high quality Set of faith-based

8:51

biblical comics that are in the platform

8:54

as well . But most of what we do are games

8:56

. We have games that

8:58

are really fun , that go deep . You

9:00

can play each of them for hours and

9:03

they , the games , tell stories and some of our games

9:05

are about Biblical

9:07

stories and concepts . Some of

9:10

them are inside this world called

9:12

the rimverse , which I'm happy to talk about today . You

9:14

might see in my shirt this little girl who's a bunny rabbit

9:16

. It's wearing a tiger costume , her

9:19

name is maple and she's very

9:21

headstrong , very much believes in God , doesn't

9:23

have a lot of time or interest in other people's opinions

9:25

, trying to do her best

9:27

in the world , and Goes on

9:30

this grandiose adventure where she learns

9:32

there's this evil queen that's twisted

9:34

and distorting the meaning of truth . In fact

9:36

, that evil queen has confiscated all the Bibles in their

9:38

society and has caused this Dileterious

9:41

effect on the culture and so the whole

9:43

game and a lot of her , the adventures that her and her

9:45

friends go on , are Kind of tied into that

9:47

thematic . So that's a little bit about what

9:50

we do . It's a bunch , like said , it's one experience

9:52

, kind of like a Netflix , but it's games , it's comics

9:54

, it's videos , all on your device

9:56

for your family , and everything

9:58

we do is about uplifting the truth

10:01

of Jesus Christ .

10:02

That is amazing . So the creative juices

10:04

to come up with this is that you , is that

10:06

another team ? I ? Where was the Genesis that

10:08

?

10:08

oh , it's all of us , man . I mean , it's it's you

10:11

know . No , you know , it's my . We

10:13

have this phenomenal team . I mean , we have this team of

10:15

just really highly talented

10:18

people who are , you

10:21

know , video game designers . We have an award

10:23

our head of video game designers , an award-winning

10:25

video game designer , our our head product

10:27

chief product officer , literally ran

10:30

some of the start of the skate franchise , if

10:32

you remember that one he built some of the . James

10:34

Bond games I'm sure most you you guys out there

10:36

played at least one of those ran

10:38

the Farmville franchise . Our head

10:41

engineer , our he

10:43

. He literally built the

10:45

algorithm at Amazon . Split this order into multiple packages . This

10:48

order will get here faster . Phenomenally

10:50

talented artists and creative writers so

10:53

it's really been . And , by the way , these

10:55

are all people who number one most

10:57

of us are parents , so we we , we

11:00

eat around cooking , if you will , right , we really

11:02

care about this and decided to do something about it . But

11:04

also people who very much believe in

11:06

the mission and most of whom , if you ask them , would

11:08

say their call . You know stories . I

11:11

mean , just somebody we just hired . He

11:13

just started on last week . He

11:16

said he was interviewing for the jobs

11:18

, wasn't liking what he was seeing . Pray

11:20

to God . He said God , you've got to send me some kind of a sign

11:22

in the next day . Or recruit . Who called him ? And

11:25

I , I can tell you stories that give you chills where

11:27

people are working at a video game

11:29

company . The stuff they're working

11:32

on is being a very sexual content or dark

11:34

, demonic content . They're feeling conflicted , right

11:36

, because they're a Christian , but they feel like , well

11:38

, I got to work , I got to pay my mortgage . I got

11:40

whatever it is . I got to feed my kids . They

11:43

got this internal conflict . Really they're being discriminated against

11:45

because they're a Christian . That's happened some employees at

11:47

previous companies . They're feeling terrible

11:49

about it . They go to the pastor and they say I

11:52

don't know what to do . The next day

11:54

a recruiter called . So we

11:56

know gods at work right , 100%

12:00

.

12:00

Well , that that's amazing . So the content

12:02

that you're creating , is there a

12:04

dream ? You said you know you're eating your own cooking for

12:06

it and they from that standpoint , but like what

12:08

age of the games designed for ?

12:10

yeah , I would kind of say the age range

12:12

is we target five to twelve

12:15

years old . Okay , we know we have a lot

12:17

of teenagers play and the reality is we

12:19

have a lot of 30 and 40 and 50 year

12:21

old kids play too . Really really

12:23

have a lot of adults and parents enjoy the

12:25

content . And here's what's funny we

12:28

built content that we know

12:30

appeals to a lot of different ages

12:32

. We write stories like the maple

12:35

story . If you , if you play the game it's called maple

12:37

and the forest of words inside the platform you

12:40

might laugh at some of the jokes and catch some of

12:42

the humor that your kid might not catch . You know what

12:44

? When Disney used to make great stuff . You know like when

12:46

?

12:46

they made the Lion .

12:47

King , the one in 94 when

12:51

you laugh , you know you appreciate

12:53

as much as the kids do . That's

12:55

how we aspire to write , you know it's thoughtful

12:58

, it's , it's well-crafted . You know

13:00

we we try to get into , you

13:02

know , the , the core emotions

13:04

that these characters are feeling , and

13:07

so we have a lot of . We found , as we were before

13:10

we launched the product , we were doing a lot of testing

13:12

and we found that parents would enjoy playing

13:14

with their families . And now we're getting kids with their kids

13:16

in the test . And then , now that we have

13:18

a lot of customers using it , enjoying it , we're

13:21

having parents say , yeah , it's something I enjoy doing with my

13:23

kids . Because , look , if you're a dad and

13:25

and you guys know this , if you're listening , as

13:28

a dad , usually you're the fun parent

13:30

, right . You're the one outside throwing the ball with

13:32

your kids . You're the one if you

13:34

, if anybody's playing video games with their kids

13:36

, is the dad right . And

13:39

so it's hard

13:41

when your choices are . You know Grand Theft

13:43

Auto and Diablo and

13:45

all these . You know hyper . You know sexual games

13:48

. You're like gosh . You know I feel bad

13:50

even having my kid Look

13:52

at the cover of the game , much less playing it right . And

13:55

and so we want it . We were crafting

13:57

these experiences that families can do together

13:59

, because you know

14:01

we're partnering with parents at true

14:03

place , so that you have something you

14:06

can be excited about , that you're proud of , that your

14:08

child is excited about , but

14:10

instead of destroying their soul , which

14:12

so much content does , or help

14:14

build their relationship with

14:16

God , with Jesus Christ , the truth of the

14:18

Bible and , frankly , just mental health and well-being

14:21

and that's a

14:23

lot of what we're about .

14:25

So how many different games is it within

14:27

the application you mentioned ? There are several

14:29

.

14:30

Yeah , we have . We have

14:32

dozens and dozens

14:34

and dozens of hours of content . We have

14:36

10 games . We have gosh

14:39

, I don't know , probably around

14:42

10 or so videos . We

14:44

have around 10 or so comics

14:47

and we're adding new stuff all the time . We have a new video game

14:49

coming out later this month called

14:52

Noah's Elephant in the Room . We have another

14:54

video game coming out in March called King

14:56

David's Battle . So look , I'm a

14:58

man , you're a man , listeners are men . You

15:02

ask most guys who's

15:04

your favorite character

15:07

in the Bible ?

15:08

Right .

15:09

Or at least in the Old Testament besides God .

15:11

They'll tell you David David absolutely

15:13

.

15:13

Yeah , king David great story . It's funny

15:15

though if you look at it . There's

15:18

been very few great games

15:21

or TV shows or movies

15:23

made about King David .

15:24

Right , right .

15:26

And so we built this great game and it's about

15:29

. It begins with David

15:31

as a shepherd getting called

15:33

into the fight , getting called into the fight with Goliath

15:35

, but that's just the beginning and then

15:37

he goes on . There's a lot of other battles that David

15:39

fought , of course , against Philistines

15:41

, against the

15:44

Amelokites came and got him , took

15:47

a bunch of stuff around 1st Samuel 30 . So

15:50

there's a lot of other wars and battles and fights

15:52

he had . So it's about that

15:54

. But it's also about how

15:56

a boy becomes a man . In

15:59

our culture today , in 2024

16:01

, as a culture at

16:03

whole , we do a terrible job of teaching boys

16:05

to be men . Now , I'm sure you

16:07

and what your ministry is about , and a lot of our listeners

16:10

, they're intentional about that . But if you're grading

16:12

America as a whole , I

16:14

mean best case scenario we get a D , and

16:19

so there's not value

16:21

given in our culture to masculinity

16:23

or teaching a boy . Now , look , you

16:25

can use your strength and your gifting

16:28

and your testosterone and your aggressiveness

16:30

to transform things for the good

16:32

. That's what David did , that's what

16:34

Moses did , that's what Noah

16:36

did , that's what Jesus

16:39

I mean . Forget about Judas

16:41

, but Jesus and the 11 apostles that were good

16:43

. That's what they did . They

16:45

had to get on a boat and travel to India

16:47

. That's what Thomas did , and

16:49

he died in India . And so

16:51

you can use your strength and

16:54

your God-given gifts as a man to do

16:56

positive , transformative things . And

16:58

we , as Christians , now have to carry that mantle

17:00

and shine that light and truth for the next

17:02

generation of boys , because

17:04

they're not getting it from popular culture . They're getting quite

17:06

the opposite .

17:08

Oh , 100% , and I mean , quite frankly

17:10

, that's what's selling and that's what's pulling so many

17:12

of them into . And you look at the statistics

17:14

around screen times and what it's doing , so that's

17:16

off to you , for at least at the screen times going

17:18

to trans , keep going the way they

17:21

are . You're putting a positive

17:23

alternative in front of them .

17:25

Yeah , yeah , and at

17:27

True Play we're absolutely about positive alternative

17:30

. But if and I'd encourage

17:32

any of you listening check it out , go to TruePlayGamescom

17:34

. It's done with beautiful artwork

17:37

, excellent . You

17:39

know we're having parents come back and say

17:41

, wow , you know , this is amazing , this is beautiful . You

17:44

know , too often I think people

17:47

have thought well , it's either Christian or it's

17:49

good quality . Right as is

17:51

false dichotomy . Like well

17:53

, hold on . Christians used to make

17:55

the best music , the best art

17:57

, the best buildings in the world . Go to Europe From

17:59

the time 300 AD , when it continued

18:02

to accept Christ , until the late 1800s

18:04

. Christians built most of the best stuff . Now

18:06

it drifted away in the 20th

18:09

century . But recently , you know , look at

18:11

what Jesus' culture has done . Look at what , or

18:13

Hillsong's music right , or the

18:16

chosen . Yeah , the chosen

18:18

, or you know there's

18:20

, there's . Or look at the Jesus Revolution

18:22

movie . So there have been people

18:24

who've said no , no , we're going to keep moving

18:26

the ball forward

18:28

. You know Lauren Daigle and the two guys

18:30

who do Forgotten Country . You know where they're raising

18:33

the bar for quality and art

18:36

and beauty in their , you know in their fields

18:38

and that's what we're doing here . So

18:40

I think if you're a parent

18:42

, I promise you you get true

18:44

play and your child will love it . And

18:47

I'll give you some interesting stats , our top five

18:50

games that we have on our platform

18:52

. If you have the top

18:54

10 games on the App Store , you know there's the most popular

18:57

games on the App Store right now Our

18:59

games . Your child will want to play

19:01

. Our stats tell us your child will enjoy playing

19:03

our games . As much as they'll enjoy those games

19:05

, because we measure that by the return rates

19:07

and how frequently the kid comes back to play them

19:09

. They'll come back as often as they will to the

19:12

top games in the App Store . So we know kids love it

19:14

and

19:16

they're really going to enjoy it . So you're not going to . It's not like trying to

19:18

force a kid to do a Bible lesson , right

19:20

. It's like no , no . It's like your

19:22

kid trying to grab the iPad and trying to play

19:24

a game and while you say well , gosh , I don't want that , well

19:26

, you probably do , because you want them to

19:29

enjoy the experience when

19:31

they're getting something good out of it .

19:33

Right , right .

19:35

And it's like well , who God is and that the Bible's true , right

19:37

and that Jesus is real . That's

19:40

what's embedded in everything that we do .

19:42

So how do you do that ? Because you mentioned the rhyme verse

19:45

, you know . I would love to know more

19:47

about that .

19:48

So to give a clearer picture

19:50

of what you're doing there , so

19:52

the rhyme verse is

19:54

this world we've created , where there's these

19:56

characters like Maple , again a bunny rabbit with a tiger

19:59

costume . Why she wearing a tiger costume ? Well

20:01

she's a little girl who's a bunny rabbit and

20:03

in their world there's , you know , all these different animals that

20:06

you know , walk and talk to their anthropomorphic

20:09

right . They walk and they talk and they have , you know , just like real

20:11

humans . Well , bunny rabbit little

20:13

girls aren't very respected in their society , no

20:16

much more than they would be in the real

20:18

world , right . So she wears a tiger costume

20:20

because she's got a strong personality

20:22

and she's fierce and wants to be respected , and

20:26

she charges into this

20:29

forbidden forest because she hears

20:31

there's this lost child and she rescues this

20:33

boy named Oliver , who's a fox , who

20:36

is he's wears a bear

20:38

costume because he's adopted . He's a fox , he

20:40

lost his parents , adopted by a bear family , and

20:43

he's a little nerdy , quite nerdy , actually very nerdy

20:45

, and he

20:47

doesn't really , he's not really sure who God is

20:49

, Like . He believes the concept of God

20:51

probably is true , but he's

20:53

a scientist and he's read all these books

20:56

that don't talk about God , so it doesn't

20:58

always make sense to him . Why would anybody

21:00

pray ? I mean , I don't see God here . Why are we just

21:03

talking ? You know , why would we just talk ? Who are we talking

21:05

to ? There's another character

21:07

named Lucas , who's a skunk

21:09

, who wears a crocodile robot suit flies

21:11

and shoots laser beams . And

21:14

Lucas is on the autism spectrum and

21:16

you know double digit percentages of our

21:18

children , especially young boys , are on the

21:20

autism spectrum . In fact , it's funny , in my life

21:22

about a third of my friends are on the spectrum

21:24

just my personal friends and that's great because

21:27

they tend to be great people , very

21:29

interesting , very thoughtful people . That's

21:31

the world we live in now and so Lucas

21:34

is that way . Unfortunately , his brother died

21:36

a year ago and he doesn't

21:38

understand death . He doesn't really know much

21:40

about who God is and he goes on this

21:42

journey with his spaceship and there's , you know , there's laser

21:44

beams and there's bad guys , and there's spaceships and there's

21:46

fights and there's explosions and all the fun

21:49

stuff . But through the story he's

21:51

learning about who God really is and what the

21:53

meaning of losing his brother is really about .

21:55

And I'll give you one more story there's .

21:56

There's a little girl named Eva , one of our most popular

21:59

games . Eva is her

22:01

parents are divorced , she's getting bullied at school

22:03

and she has to learn that

22:06

when people say negative

22:08

things about you , you don't have to accept

22:10

it . Her identity is

22:12

not who the world says you are who someone

22:15

else's opinion of you . Your

22:17

identity is who God says you , and

22:19

you know . We're in this identity crisis right now

22:21

in America , really in the western world . Well

22:24

, if children just knew no , no , no , no . Your identity

22:26

is who you're fearfully and wonderfully made . You're a child

22:28

of God . Your identity is these gifts

22:31

and attributes God's given to you . That's

22:33

the identity you have to hang on to and that's the

22:35

whole thrust of her game . So the rim verses

22:38

is grandiose universe where

22:40

there's all these kids going all these adventures and , yes , they

22:42

look ridiculous because there's animal characters in

22:44

these different costumes , but

22:46

their personalities are just

22:48

what kids are dealing with today and just the way

22:51

kids are wired today . And it's just

22:53

this grandiose adventure that's told in various games

22:55

, comics , videos and so forth .

22:57

I mean , I'm just those four very

23:00

relatable to the different types of

23:02

scenarios that kids are facing these days . I mean

23:04

, did you go through ? I'm curious , how

23:06

was the process of coming up with these different characters

23:08

that you would be working with like a test

23:10

group of kids to give you feedback that I'm always

23:13

curious on how that works .

23:14

Yeah , that's a great question . So we

23:16

have this just genius head

23:19

writer . Her name is Alice Mills

23:21

and she came up with all these characters

23:23

and

23:25

she worked with other people too , the people in the writing team , and

23:31

so we came up with these different characters

23:33

and then kind of formed their personalities

23:35

and we did where we did testing was on their design

23:37

, and so we

23:39

used some testing

23:41

and some focus groups to say , okay

23:44

, how tall they are and their body proportions

23:47

of the characters and

23:49

the different attributes and color

23:52

schemes and all those things . And

23:54

then what you kind of find , after you let

23:57

kids use it and try it , is

23:59

who kids kind of find their favorites

24:01

. And so Maple is the most popular female

24:03

character and so you see a lot of her that

24:05

are most popular male characters Lucas , you

24:08

know the skunk and the crocodile robot suit , and

24:10

so we basically wind up designing

24:13

you know content , telling stories around those

24:15

characters that tended to be the most

24:17

popular .

24:18

Okay , that is amazing , and

24:20

it's seven characters in total , right

24:23

, that you guys are working with .

24:24

Yeah , although there's , yes , although it's kind of like

24:26

you know , we're adding new characters

24:28

all the time . You know , kind of like in the Marvel Universe

24:30

or in Star Wars , where we're trying to kind of fold people

24:32

in .

24:32

Yeah , on a regular basis .

24:34

So , yeah , there's new characters that'll be coming

24:36

in , and so on and so forth Bad

24:39

guys too , which we can talk about , but yeah

24:41

.

24:41

Yeah , yeah , who are the bad guys ? Because I mean

24:43

, we all heard it was evil , so the main bad guy in

24:45

the remverse right now .

24:47

her name is Azilla , and Azilla is this

24:50

evil queen that has corrupted

24:52

and twisted the meaning of words . So what you think

24:54

a word means isn't what it means anymore . Because

24:57

she's manipulated and one

24:59

of the things she did a few years ago was

25:01

she , she confiscated every Bible

25:03

in their society . So there are pieces

25:06

of scripture . So , in other words , the kids will quote

25:08

parts of the Bible because they , there are churches

25:10

in their society . So they've , they've

25:12

, you know , they've , they've heard , they know who Jesus

25:15

is , they know who God is and they , they have no course

25:17

. Like any society , not everybody's a Christian , not everybody

25:19

goes to church , but there are Christians there and , like

25:21

Maple and her family , they have

25:23

pieces of scripture , but no one has an entire

25:25

Bible , because Azilla confiscated all

25:27

of it . And so this

25:30

kind of devious plot is uncovered as they

25:32

go into the forest . And of course , Azilla

25:34

, what she tries to do is , you

25:37

know , wipe out the kids , our

25:39

hero kids , and tries to kind

25:41

of use lies to attack

25:44

their identities . There's another character named

25:46

Benjamin . Benjamin is kind of a warrior alpha

25:48

male , kind of a King David guy . In fact we

25:50

just released a game last month about him , called

25:52

Benjamin and the armor of logos , and

25:54

in that game you know , like

25:56

Beeson Six , the armor of God . So you kind of earn

25:59

that the armor of God through this great combat game

26:01

, and so

26:03

she'll . Azilla's attack at Benjamin is like you're

26:05

a coward when reality God

26:08

made him to be brave . But sometimes

26:10

we find in our lives where the devil

26:12

tries to attack us is on the very

26:14

thing that God's told us the opposite . You know that God

26:16

tells you you're brilliant and the devil

26:18

tries to tell you you're dumb . You know God tells you're loved

26:21

and the enemy tries to tell you nobody cares

26:23

about you , Right ? So she tried

26:25

to come at him with his lie . That's

26:28

the opposite of actually the truth and

26:30

he's got to learn not to succumb to those kind of .

26:33

Mm , hmm , that sounds

26:35

. That sounds incredible . You said there's two

26:37

other components . You had the comics and the videos

26:39

too , so that's right . You know how's

26:41

the response been to those , to those areas

26:43

?

26:44

Well so . So the games are certainly

26:46

the most popular thing that people love

26:48

. The videos are done with

26:50

very high quality . We did a series of

26:53

prayer was first of all . We did two really

26:55

great animated shorts and we did a series of prayer videos

26:57

. Then we did some videos for Christmas . I

27:00

know there's more videos coming out in the next few months

27:02

and the comics are great because

27:04

, look , you know I have a lot of respect

27:07

for . You know all

27:09

Christians who are trying to produce quality entertainment

27:12

. You know whether it's comics or music or movie

27:14

, some of the people we mentioned . And so

27:16

you know , like I said , with

27:18

King Stone and with David C Cook's

27:20

Action Bible , you know

27:22

we're they're very , very high quality

27:24

products and you know , people , that

27:26

they're very nice pieces

27:29

to explore . One is you know that the action Bible

27:31

is just Bible stories . King Stone is

27:33

interesting . The one , one of the comics

27:35

we have right now is it's a series of comics called

27:38

the Book of God . It's how was the Bible

27:40

actually made . You know who wrote this piece , who

27:42

wrote that piece , how it came together . You

27:44

know the depths of the history of

27:47

the actual compilation of the Bible . So it's

27:49

pretty interesting and frankly , for

27:51

kids to learn because , as we know , there's

27:54

a lot of misinformation about the Bible , right . There's

27:56

a lot of you know you , you'll go here

27:59

in most colleges , like college

28:01

I went to , and tell you oh , the Bible is just missed , it's

28:03

just fables . No , it's not . It's actually a historical fact

28:05

and there's a lot

28:07

of depth behind it and children need

28:09

to know that .

28:10

They definitely do , yeah . So when

28:13

did True Play come out ? How long have you guys

28:15

been out there ?

28:15

We launched in August of last

28:18

year .

28:18

Okay , how's the response been ?

28:20

People love it . We've gotten phenomenal ratings

28:23

. We've gotten the

28:26

as I was talking about the way

28:29

that kids use it , we're seeing

28:31

the average child use this 90

28:33

minutes a week . So that means if you use

28:36

, if you take your kid to church once a week

28:38

, we're going to more than double your child's exposure to God's grace

28:40

. We're going to have more than double your child's exposure to God's truth , because

28:42

every our commitment to parents , every

28:45

piece of content that we make , contains

28:47

God's truth . Now , it may be a Bible story , it

28:50

may be the history of how the Bible is written . It may be Maple

28:52

, who lives her

28:54

life following God

28:56

and she goes out and her adventures and she has her

28:58

success and her failures . But don't we all

29:00

? Everything we do is

29:03

gonna be the underpinning of God's

29:05

truth . And we're seeing

29:07

the usage rates

29:09

, the patterns of usage Our kids

29:11

love . If you look at our retention statistics

29:14

are as high as the top 10 games

29:16

in the app store . So we know kids love it . We

29:18

know that parents

29:20

are seeing a lot of value out of it . We

29:23

know that

29:25

, compared to other kids' educational apps there's other

29:27

kids' educational apps to teach you how to read and

29:29

spell and do foreign language

29:31

we're finding that kids are enjoying

29:33

using TruePlay more than any of those other kids'

29:35

educational apps , and so there's

29:38

response to this phenomenal . And I guess , I would add

29:40

, for those who were interested

29:42

in this , we have been blessed to be

29:45

endorsed by the Billy Graham Evangelistic

29:47

Association Pastor Sam

29:49

Rodriguez , dean Kane , kevin

29:51

Sorbo , candace Cameron

29:53

gosh

29:56

. The response has just been fantastic

29:58

from a lot of serious

30:01

Christians and just really really

30:03

great people , so

30:06

it's really been cool .

30:07

That's awesome . So is it like a monthly

30:09

or annual subscription , like how do parents

30:12

want to consider it ?

30:12

Yeah , either way , yeah it's a subscription service

30:15

, so just like you would pay for , just like you probably

30:17

pay for Netflix I don't know if

30:19

you guys still pay for Disney Plus . There's

30:21

not , everybody does anymore

30:24

.

30:24

No , no , no .

30:26

But you can subscribe . You can

30:28

buy an annual or monthly , but look , there's no ads

30:31

. There's no in-app purchases

30:33

, so once you pay the subscription and

30:35

then that's just all you pay and

30:38

there's no chat rooms . So

30:40

in a lot of the biggest gaming platforms that

30:44

the kids are playing with some

30:47

of the online stuff , there's been some lawsuits

30:49

around exposing

30:51

kids to online predators . Right

30:53

, right so you don't have to worry about that with Tube Play . We

30:56

don't have that . It's been . Obviously

30:59

we take kids , mental

31:01

health and futures

31:03

and their well-being of their souls frankly

31:05

very seriously . That's why we're here and

31:08

so you can rest assured as a

31:10

parent sure , you have to pay for Tube

31:12

Play , just like you pay for Netflix or

31:14

you pay for to watch ESPN

31:16

. I

31:19

would just ask parents out there , christians

31:23

, to remember that there's very , very few

31:25

alternatives of high quality in the Christian

31:27

space at all . So we've gotta kind of

31:29

come together and support I

31:31

think Patrick Bet David said this on one of his podcasts

31:33

. If you guys listen to him because , look , if you're

31:35

tired of what mainstream media is giving you or

31:38

you feel like the values are

31:40

so antithetical in

31:42

most TV shows and movies , if you see someone

31:45

else coming out with a great product , then you need

31:47

to write the chat because we've

31:49

gotta all come together . This Tube Play is

31:51

really a movement , right ? It's us

31:54

saying , look , we think parents make

31:56

the best parents . We're bringing a product

31:58

to come alongside and partner with you as a parent that

32:01

we promise you you're a kid beloved and we promise you

32:03

is gonna have . Everything

32:06

we do is gonna deliver God's truth to them , and you can't

32:08

get that anywhere else .

32:10

You definitely can't . I mean , at some point

32:12

your values and everything has

32:14

to align to your checkbook , so you gotta start making

32:16

your cash , make a decision . So I mean , I think this makes

32:18

natural sense . I'm

32:21

sure you have a plan you guys just launched . Where

32:24

do you see it going ? What's your

32:26

long-term vision for this ?

32:27

Yeah , great question . Look , our goal

32:29

is to transform a whole generation

32:32

of children . Not everybody realizes how

32:34

bad it is . Did you know that anxiety

32:37

, suicide and depression rates are all-time highs for

32:39

kids ?

32:40

Did you ?

32:40

know that the average male's exposed to porn when he's

32:42

11 ? Did you know this

32:44

is the worst ? Well , I'll give you two more . The

32:47

second worst is , for the first time in your my lifetime

32:49

, for the first time in almost 80 years , less

32:52

than half of Americans go to church . And

32:55

the worst one is , while

32:57

62% of American adults

32:59

believe in God which is actually pretty good only

33:02

31% of children believe

33:04

in God in America . And

33:06

it's all because of screens . The average kid's on a screen

33:08

52 and a half hours a week , right ? So if

33:11

you're not , well , let me say it this

33:13

way even if you're teaching your child

33:15

at home and you're taking your

33:17

kid to church , you've got 52

33:19

and a half hours a week of neutral

33:21

to highly toxic content

33:24

coming at your kid's sexual content , demonic

33:27

, hyper-violent stuff , stuff

33:30

that you wouldn't adults , weren't

33:32

even able to do 30 years ago . Now

33:34

it's commonplace for kids , and so

33:36

our vision is no , look , let's

33:38

transform a whole generation of children . Let's

33:40

change 30% to 40 , to

33:42

50 , over half , and

33:45

so we're building a large multimedia

33:47

entertainment company where there are games , video

33:50

content , comics . There's

33:52

more in the future . We're releasing new content all

33:54

the time . As I mentioned , we got another game coming

33:56

out this month . King David's Battles is coming out two months

33:58

later . Our team works hard and when

34:00

people subscribe to Choo Play , all

34:03

that does is we're paying our team

34:05

to keep

34:07

continuing to make great content to serve you and

34:09

your family .

34:10

Mm-hmm , 100% . I mean

34:12

, how big is your team right now ? You mentioned

34:14

several wonderful people .

34:16

Yeah , I mean it's dozens and dozens

34:18

and dozens of people , because we're building . It's a platform

34:20

, it's a content . There's a whole lot that

34:22

we've built and done that

34:25

we've had to really put together . So it's a lot .

34:27

What's been the hardest part . Again , that's started .

34:31

You know , one of the hardest parts is

34:34

, you

34:36

know what Jesus said many are called , but few are chosen

34:38

, and maybe , of course

34:41

, that's a translation . Perhaps a

34:43

more appropriate translation is many

34:45

are called , but few answer Amen

34:47

to that . Right , and by that

34:49

I mean if you're in Christian mission

34:51

. You know what I'm talking about . We're . I'll

34:54

give you an example . We had a . So , look , we

34:56

have a phenomenal team of truly world-class

34:58

people and I've described some of them who are all in on the

35:00

mission . But , that said , we

35:03

have . It's taken a long time to build

35:05

and to acquire and attract that

35:07

team because of what I'm about to describe

35:09

. This

35:12

is just a case in point . So this is a guy we

35:14

interviewed back as we were getting started

35:16

in the first few months of the company . Very

35:19

talented , experience in the video game industry

35:22

, was working on a game

35:24

that was , let me say

35:26

, on his resume was one of the top

35:28

intellectual properties IPs

35:30

in the history of the world . Very

35:33

strong Christian , you know . Yeah , I love this

35:35

. I'm all in on it . I teach my kids the Bible Awesome

35:38

. We interview him , spend

35:40

a lot of time with him . You know , multiple interviews to go through

35:43

the whole process . We have a very high bar for who we

35:45

hire here . Put him through the whole process

35:47

. Hey , we think you're really strong . We'd love to have

35:49

you be part of this . How about you make it ? Okay ? Great , well

35:51

, we can match that . Plus , we're going to give you

35:53

stock options right as the company grows . You're going

35:56

to prosper from that . And , by the way

35:58

, he said you know I hate where I work . I

36:00

have to sit through these seminars , talk about all this

36:02

sexual stuff I don't want to hear about . I

36:05

feel discriminated against because I'm a Christian . Hey

36:07

, we don't have seminars , that

36:09

stuff here . We'd love to have you

36:11

. We think you're fantastic . You're

36:14

going to be able to talk about God at work Sounds

36:17

great . Want to do it ? Yeah , sounds good . Okay

36:20

, well , we , you know

36:22

, here's the deal and we'd love to have you come in the office

36:24

. Wait , wait , wait , what do you mean ? Come in the office ? Well

36:26

, yeah , well , you know , we have an office in

36:29

about a 30 minute commute for you . Oh , bro , bro

36:31

, bro , I can't

36:33

, I can't commute . I got to be

36:35

home with my kids . Wait , a minute , I'm not

36:37

talking about you doing a job Like I

36:39

thought we were talking about . I thought we were talking about paying you

36:41

to work here , not stay

36:43

home and babysit

36:45

. What are we talking about ? Oh , man , a commute

36:48

, 30 minutes . Hey , you know there's podcasts

36:50

, there's Christian radio that you could

36:52

even listen to rock and roll . But

36:54

my point is this there's

36:57

a lot of talented Christians we've

36:59

spoken to who will

37:01

say things like but

37:03

I'm inconvenienced , but I want to

37:05

work from home , but I , but I

37:07

have this what

37:10

about my stock options at Apple or Google

37:12

, or blah , blah , blah . So they're , even

37:14

though they're , they're feeling discriminated against

37:16

at their work and they don't agree with what they're doing

37:18

and they say I want to go make

37:20

a difference . There's something else gets in

37:23

the way . Yeah , their priorities

37:25

, right , and . And you know , it's

37:27

like Jesus said , what the ? The the fields are ripe , at

37:29

the harvesters the harvest is ripe , but the workers

37:31

are few , right , right , and

37:35

, and that's , and again , I think anybody in modern day America

37:37

, I mean you look at , you , look

37:39

at how certain people , if

37:41

their values are violated , they'll destroy

37:45

property , they'll burn buildings

37:47

down , they'll put up signs

37:49

and quit their jobs and protests . But

37:51

when Christians are asked to take on

37:54

a calling , there's not as many that

37:56

get in as you would think . And

37:58

that's , that's because I think , unfortunately

38:00

, we've become

38:02

a consumer driven Christian culture

38:04

. You know , it's not like that . When you go into oppressed societies

38:07

like in India or parts of Africa , man

38:09

, people are Christians . There they're in necks

38:11

on the line , you got that right . But

38:13

in America it's like going

38:15

to McDonald's . Ah , the fries were cold , there

38:17

wasn't enough . You know , they ran out of Dr Pepper

38:19

. I didn't like the way the person talked to me

38:22

at the drive-thru . Okay , but

38:24

church isn't church isn't McDonald's , man

38:26

, right , it's a kitchen yeah . To get in and cook

38:28

yeah . That's the difference .

38:31

Well , I mean , too often it's like church is the country club

38:33

versus the hospital . You know , and we're just

38:36

. We completely missed it completely . That's right

38:38

. I know you're short on time

38:40

, so I do want to wrap up with this with

38:42

this one of those . So what do you hope the listeners

38:44

out there , particularly the fathers , remember

38:47

the most ? And maybe give them a charge to take action

38:49

from our conversation here ?

38:51

Yeah , you know . I want to just say

38:53

, you know , I want to remind men , you

38:56

think about the Godhead , the Holy

38:58

Spirit , jesus Christ , and

39:00

the head of the Godhead is the Father . So

39:02

if you're a Father , that's a special name that's

39:04

bestowed to you , that's

39:06

a responsibility that I'm sure

39:08

you guys take seriously . But

39:11

just to remind you and encourage you , a few things

39:13

. One , you being a Father

39:15

matters to God . Two , in my

39:17

personal experience , I've got three kids , been

39:19

a Father for 16 years . It's

39:21

been the most profound , meaningful

39:24

experience in my life . And

39:27

third , and I get a lot of joy out of it , and I hope

39:29

that if you're listening , you

39:31

take the time to get joy out of your kids . Do some

39:33

things that are fun . I played

39:35

basketball with my son last night . You could play video

39:37

games at TruePlay with your kids too . That's okay

39:39

. Sorry , I had to plug , but

39:42

finding the joy and knowing that , yes

39:44

, look , are things bad in our culture

39:47

today ? Yes , they are . Can things get

39:49

better ? Yes , they can Read

39:51

the story of Elijah . Things are really bad , things

39:53

got better . Things are really bad , things got

39:55

better . Billy Graham , not everybody realizes this . I

39:58

told you the last 80 years ago , less

40:01

than half of Americans went to church . That was in

40:03

the late 1930s

40:05

, early 1940s but then a guy came named

40:07

Billy Graham and a lot of people were involved in that it wasn't

40:09

just him , of course . A lot of other people too . This

40:11

movement started and essentially a revival

40:14

happened where a lot of people started going

40:16

to church , believing in the Bible , believing

40:18

in Jesus Christ , and the whole society

40:21

changed as a result of that . That kind

40:23

of thing can happen too , and can happen for our generation

40:25

of kids , and I want to encourage dads

40:28

to

40:31

keep faith and stay strong and support each other . And

40:33

obviously , if what we talked about today sounds

40:36

interesting to you , we'd be honored to have

40:38

you and your family as part of our True Play family

40:40

. We built it to serve you

40:42

and we hope it does .

40:43

Amen , and that's where can they go . Where

40:45

do you want to send them to learn more , to get more information

40:48

, to learn more about you ? Just give them some links , yeah

40:50

.

40:51

And if you're interested in the show , go

40:53

to wwwtruplytrouplayscom . There's

40:57

all kinds of information about who we are and

40:59

what we do and the content and who

41:01

supported us and endorsed us and

41:03

it's just been fantastic

41:06

the types of people

41:08

who have been supporting us

41:10

and the feedback we've gotten from families and children

41:12

, and so

41:14

again , I appreciate you guys checking out . Is that how

41:16

to True Play games ?

41:18

Absolutely . We'll try to have that link

41:20

in our show notes for Brent . Anything else Would

41:23

you like to share with our listeners today ?

41:25

I would just say thanks for what you're doing . It's

41:28

as men , as Christians , we've got to stand

41:30

up and lead . We've got

41:32

to stand up against so much

41:35

of what's going on in our culture , and why

41:37

? Because we've

41:39

got to stand up for the younger ones

41:41

. Things are so bad for our kids All

41:44

the statistics I said earlier it's

41:46

like where are the adults in the room ? If you walked

41:48

into a room and kids are playing with fireworks

41:51

, five-year-olds are playing with dynamite , where's the adults

41:53

in the room ? What were the adults in the room ? Our

41:56

generation knows if you're Gen X or

41:58

if you're a millennial , you're the adult

42:00

in the room now . And so

42:03

I just want to thank you for what you're doing , chris , to

42:05

encourage men to be men and for

42:08

the benefit of children . Also

42:10

women , wives and so forth

42:12

, and mothers . But I just

42:14

appreciate what you guys are doing and excited

42:16

to be rolling in the boat with you

42:18

.

42:19

Amen , I pray . Nothing but blessings

42:21

and success for your team at TruePlay . Guys

42:23

, go check it out for sure . Go to the App Store right

42:26

now , get your subscription going and

42:28

man . Thank you , brent , so much for sharing with us today .

42:31

I'll be with you , chris , thank you .

42:32

Yes , sir , I

42:36

find it . It helps me to have a guide at

42:39

times when I'm reading and studying

42:41

the Bible . Another way that

42:43

helps me is by using devotionals to

42:45

guide not only what I read , but

42:47

insights into the scriptures themselves

42:50

. So we were blessed to

42:52

become an author on the YouVersion

42:54

Bible app , and we saw an immediate

42:57

opportunity to help others with

42:59

devotionals around the areas that

43:01

we spend the most time talking about at the

43:03

land , within us . So if you enjoy

43:05

the show , you may enjoy these

43:07

devotes as well . We have some

43:09

guys that are using them as part of their small groups

43:12

as well , as they're a great way

43:14

to get conversations going . So

43:16

the CEDA ones that we created head over to

43:19

the lionwithinus slash

43:21

u version , and that's y-o-u-v-e-r-s-i-o-n

43:26

. To learn more . So that's

43:28

the lionwithinus slash

43:30

u version to get started with your

43:32

own men's devotional today

43:34

. Well

43:39

, guys , that was a fun one . I knew Brent was going to bring

43:41

it . He absolutely did . We had to have . I

43:43

know this is a little bit shorter episode , but he had some

43:45

time constraints we had to work with , so I

43:47

apologize about that , but I still feel like we got to

43:50

the core of the message out that we really were

43:52

aiming for . We prayed together before

43:54

we started recording and

43:56

I thought it turned out well . So hopefully you guys

43:58

are enjoying that conversation . Now

44:01

you got to take some action . Go

44:03

out and check out TruePlay . Okay

44:05

, I really want you to think about that , because you know

44:07

the question a week this week has been what steals the

44:09

most of your time on your devices

44:12

? I know there's things that steals

44:14

our time . We need to put some

44:16

effort to put good biblical

44:18

content in front of us , particularly our

44:20

children as they continue

44:22

to grow . So if you can remove some

44:24

of the silly games that they're playing and put

44:26

something in front of them that still captures their attention

44:29

, still gets them that dopamine

44:31

hit they're looking for right from your device but

44:34

at the same time teaches us some biblical

44:36

truth , I think that's called a win-win

44:38

. So , as we're checking out , go to TruePlay

44:40

, check it out . We'll have some links in the show

44:42

notes here for you guys as well . You

44:44

can try to go get those resources

44:47

as you move forward , okay , so come back on

44:49

Friday . We'll have a good Fun Friday episode for

44:51

you . We've got some tips for you . You'd have to book a week laid

44:53

out . We'll have a couple of dad jokes for you . You

44:55

know how we do it at the Lion Within is , guys , so lots

44:57

of great things going on there . And

45:00

other than that , fellas , the Lion Withinus

45:03

is how you connect with us . That's how you get all our

45:05

resources , the 30 days done . Each the Lion Within

45:07

you got our quiz , we have our Bible

45:09

resources , we have our swag , our shirts

45:12

, our hats and things like that . Go to the

45:14

Lion Withinus If you just like the content

45:16

and you're not interested in joining a community , but

45:18

you want to support what we're doing , be

45:21

a donor , be a monthly donor , go support

45:23

us . That would be just tremendously

45:25

impactful to what

45:27

we're doing . Okay , so go check that

45:29

stuff out at the Lion Withinus . Obviously

45:32

, we have our summit leadership development . If

45:34

you are wanting more help on being

45:36

an ethical business leader , making

45:39

ethical business decisions and

45:41

using God's word to guide that , the

45:43

summit's where it's at . If you're feeling

45:45

isolated and alone and you need some

45:47

, you really have this desire

45:50

to have some relationships

45:52

with Christian men , our community's

45:54

where it's at . I'm telling you , we have meetings all

45:56

the time . We have meetings for you to engage

45:58

, to meet , to have iron-sharpening

46:01

, iron moments . We have mastermind groups , we have couples

46:03

night , we have Bible studies . The

46:05

resources are out there . We built the platform

46:08

you got to lean in , so start your 30-day

46:10

free trial . Head over to the Lion Withinus

46:12

for that , okay , so come on by . We

46:15

look forward to seeing you on Friday . Share

46:17

this stuff out , particularly with those dads

46:19

out there who have kids . This

46:21

would be a great one to share out , because

46:23

, you never know , this could be just that one

46:26

resource that they're looking for to try

46:28

to make that connection between their devices

46:30

and God's word for their children

46:32

. So this could be it . So hopefully you guys share that

46:34

out , enjoy it , have a go and get after

46:36

it . Keep on leashing

46:39

the lion to

46:41

the bed .