In this insightful episode of The Whole Church Podcast, we reestablish our annual tradition by welcoming Eric Nevins, the esteemed founder of the Christian Podcasters Association and host of the renowned "Halfway There" podcast. Our conversation primarily revolves around the current state of Christian podcasts, delving into the transformations and trends that have emerged over the past year in this rapidly evolving medium. Eric and our hosts, Joshua Noel and TJ Blackwell, engage in a thoughtful discourse, sharing their reflections on various podcasts that have captivated their attention, igniting interest and fostering dialogue among listeners. The episode serves as a valuable resource for those seeking to navigate the landscape of Christian media, encouraging a spirit of collaboration and unity within the community.

As we explore these themes, we invite our audience to reflect on the significance of diverse voices within the podcasting realm and the impact they can have on the broader church narrative. The Whole Church Podcast welcomes Eric Nevins back for a comprehensive analysis of the current state of Christian podcasts, reviving an annual tradition that had been missed in the previous year. Hosts Joshua Noel and TJ Blackwell engage in a profound dialogue with Nevins, who is recognized not only as the founder of the Christian Podcasters Association but also as the host of the acclaimed “Halfway There” podcast. The episode intricately examines how the podcasting platform has evolved and its pivotal role in fostering discussions among Christians from varied theological backgrounds.

Throughout the conversation, Nevins articulates the democratizing effect of podcasting, asserting that it allows individuals to share their faith stories and insights in ways that transcend traditional church boundaries. The trio discusses the significance of unity within the Christian community, emphasizing the importance of compassionate dialogue over divisive rhetoric. They explore the power of storytelling as a means of connecting believers and how this medium can serve as a vital tool for discipleship and spiritual growth. Listeners are treated to a curated list of noteworthy podcasts that have captured the attention of the hosts and Nevins, showcasing the diversity and richness of content available within the Christian podcasting landscape.

The episode not only celebrates the successes of these shows but also encourages listeners to engage thoughtfully with the material, fostering a culture of curiosity and dialogue. Ultimately, the episode serves as a clarion call for Christians to embrace the potential of podcasting to unite, educate, and inspire, reinforcing the notion that through shared stories and open conversations, the Church can grow stronger and more inclusive.

Takeaways:

1. The current state of Christian podcasts indicates a decline in active shows, highlighting the need for quality content.
2. Eric Nevins emphasizes the importance of storytelling in podcasting to foster deeper connections and understanding among listeners.
3. The podcasting landscape is shifting towards institutional content, yet individual voices are still crucial to maintain diversity and authenticity.
4. Listeners are encouraged to engage in meaningful conversations and ask questions to promote unity and empathy within the Christian community.
5. The hosts reflect on their personal journeys and the impact of podcasts on their understanding of faith and community.
6. In the pursuit of church unity, it is essential to ask questions before reacting, fostering a culture of curiosity and understanding.

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Colossians 3, verses 9 through 17 in the New American Standard Bible.

Do not lie to one another, since you stripped off the old self with its evil practices, and have put on the new self, which is being renewed to a new knowledge according to the image of the one who created it. A renewal in which there is no distinction between Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised. Barbarian Scythian. I don't know how to say that.

Slave and free, but Christ is all and in all.

So as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving each other.

Whoever has a complaint against anyone, just as the Lord forgave you, so you must also do, in addition to all these things, put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity. Love. Let the peace of Christ, to which you are indeed called in one body, rule in your hearts and be thankful.

Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God. Whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father.

In this epistle, Paul is addressing a heresy about salvation that crept up in the local church there at Colossus, right before this pericope, Paul explained the power and importance of Christ to salvation. And in the pericope that I just read, it's part of a longer segment on how those in Christ work together as the church.

Eric Nevins how might podcast play a role in how the modern church admonishes one another and teaches one another in perfect unity, similar to how Paul is instructing the church in Colossus to behave with one another in this section of Scripture?

Okay, that's a great question. I think podcasts are the great democratizer, right? Like not only are they great for really Internet, maybe we could go like even, even bigger.

But I love Paul's emphasis on wherever you are, where we come from, we're all the same in Christ.

And I think if you have something to share that you've gleaned from scripture or God has said to you, you can, you can share it through a podcast or you can, you have a message, you want to share it, you can do that in podcasting or the Internet.

Yeah, yeah, Substacks getting a big way.

Right? But that's just. Those are just one examples and those are the ones for today, right? There's a whole bunch of. It's going to be different in 10 years.

Yeah.

Communication constantly evolving. Hey, guys, welcome to the whole Church podcast. Possibly your favorite church unity podcast.

If it's not, that's great too, because, you know, this whole unity bit, we want you guys to appreciate all kinds of podcasts and we're in unity with the other ones if they're getting the job done better than us. And we just want to support them and what they're doing too, because, you know, that's kind of our whole gig.

Yeah, we'll jump ship.

Yeah, we'll just help them. I'm Joshua Noel here with the one and only co host with the most pot almighty, DJ Tipper. Here's one Blackwell. How's it going, tj?

Great.

And we are here with a very special guest. Return guest.

We missed one year, so we might have a little extra catching up to do with the founder of the Christian Podcasters association friend, Sage, awesome guy. Host of Halfway There, the one and only Eric Nevins. Welcome to the show, man.

Yeah, hey, thanks for having me. You're very, very kind. Far, far too kind for me. Nobody's ever called me a stage before. That's okay.

Just I'm here to be the hype man, you know, I like it.

I'll take it. Don't get me wrong, I'll take it.

Yeah. Yeah.

If no one else will notice your sagacity, then.

I'm here for it.

You can't just go unmentioned. If you're listening, check out the website. You know, it's new for this year. It's fancy. Now check out one of our T shirts, help promote the show.

It's super helpful. It's free advertising for us. Pretty sweet deal if you ask me. And you should probably check out the On a style podcast network website.

The link is below to that for shows that are like ours, shows that aren't like ours, shows that we like to like.

Yeah, it's actually new too. They're both through Fourth Wall, which is just great. So if you. All the shirts and stuff are mostly like comfort colors.

Like it's good, high quality stuff. And if you see some of the other shows and their products over on the Unazolve podcast thing, be sure to support them too.

We got a lot of people that are doing great stuff on the network. Releasing soon or already released depending on when I do this because of things. You'll have your matter matters.

Pastor Will Rose and Pastor Thomas Johnson. And they have some great merch on the website that they did for their show. We really want you guys to.

Because we love Pastor Will with not our whole hearts, because our whole hearts are for Jesus, but there's this overlap where we love Will a lot, too. Yeah. And with that out of the way, we have to start our show with the ultimate form of unity, holy sacrament around these parts, at least for me.

Because you can't be in disarray. You can't have discord. You can have the app, but you can't have actual discord if you're being as silly as I like to be.

So we're going to start, as always, with a silly question. Today's. I'm going to start with. Say you can't choose white or black. Those aren't colors in my book.

If every single clothing item you had for the rest of time were all to be the same one color, what color do you want your clothes to be for the rest of eternity?

So is it the same color and shade? Everything is exactly the same.

Exactly the same forever. You're stuck. You've been put a really weird Adventure Time curse you got. I'll start. Wait, what is it?

Shoes too?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Shoes too, Everything. Socks, undergarments. Yeah, I'm gonna go with exactly the shade I'm wearing.

I wasn't doing that on purpose, but just happened to work out, you know, Comfort colors has some, like, a lot more muted colors. I feel like I like red a lot, but I don't want to, like, be constantly wearing a primary color and just be an eyesore to everyone always.

I'm not gonna look good if I'm all wearing the same color anyway. But at least I could choose, like, a muted red. Something that, like, looks good on me, I still like. And it's not in your face constantly, you know?

Yeah, yeah.

So, dj, honestly, I'd probably go for something more like what Eric's wearing, like a. A nice blue.

Yeah.

Nothing crazy, you know, Like, I've got blue eyes. Gotta make the most out of the single color forever.

Yeah.

I'm a little disappointed you didn't say purple. I. I just.

I just don't look that great in purple.

You are exclusively purple on this podcast for years.

Yeah, it's, you know, diminishing of the self.

Yeah.

It's humble.

Yeah, yeah.

He's not joker. Sorry.

He's Mr. Purple. It's different.

But if not blue, probably like a yellow. Dark yellow. I look super tan and yellow.

I love yellow. I don't look good in yellow. I wish I did. Or I Would have chose some shade of yellow, but.

Okay, so this conversation is reminding me of the guy. The Savannah Bananas guys. Jesse.

Oh, yeah.

He always. He has, like, seven yellow tuxes right in the hat. And like, he. This is what he wears every day.

So he really does have to wear the same color every day for the rest of his life. At least that's what he's. I don't know if he wears it on vacation or who knows?

But I hope so.

I think he does.

Yeah. Because I think he's really, like. It's. But the point is, he's really recognizable. Everybody knows who he is when he shows up anywhere.

Right.

So. Okay, I'm gonna answer. I was. I thought you took away black. Because if you're gonna be like, do a Johnny Cash, you just do black. You know, that's.

That's one thing.

Black would have just been the right answer. So it couldn't happen.

Correct. Yeah. Because then you always look good. Right? You always look good.

And I considered maybe this shade of blue, like, just like a blue, you know, because I like blue. But in light of all that has been said, I'm going to say I'm going to go with Cardinal red. Like, I'm a big St. Louis Cardinals fan.

Yeah, that's.

We could go with red. And, yeah, I'll stand out in the crowd, but as we already talked about with the Savannah Bananas. Doesn't matter. That's your distinction.

Yeah. I mean, at this point, you're going to stand out.

Less noticeable. Yeah, it'll be less noticeable. Everyone's going to stand out.

That's right.

If everything says Cardinals, people just think you're, like, really into the team.

That's right.

I just look like a freak who doesn't know how to pick his clothes.

Right. I'll be like, I don't. I don't know. I don't own the team. I'm just crazy.

Yeah.

Which is par for the course for sports.

So. Yeah.

Eric, it's been some time since you've.

Been on the show.

Yeah.

Little over a year. Really.

It's not that long in the grand scheme of things, but would you mind catching our listeners up on what you've been up to with the cpa, Whatever else you've been doing halfway there, just. Just give it to us.

What have we missed?

Yeah, well, not a lot, because not a lot has happened. So it's actually kind of a hopefully. It's like, how do I make this?

Yeah. He was waiting to be eventful till he was on Old Church. Yeah.

I don't really have anything. You know, it's. It's good. Podcasting has been an interesting state right now, which I think is. Is as I've definitely felt in CPA as well.

I've actually. I mean, I love cpa, but realize I'm gonna. I'm gonna move a lot more of my energy to some other things that.

For business, that I'll just let CPA be more of a side hustle. But I still love it and I still believe in the vision. So it's been a lot of the last two years. To be honest, there's been some.

Some grief to that as well, because I love it and I love helping people find their voice, find their message, and kind of fine tune those things, be able to talk about it. And that's important because we need more people to do that.

Interestingly, did you guys know that in the podcast industry in general, last time I looked at the numbers, this is about a month and a half ago. There's less active podcasts today than there were four years ago. Good.

I felt like probably there was less now.

Right.

Yeah.

Yeah. That's interesting.

So, yeah, I think microphones were too accessible.

Well, there's a few people. Yeah. The problem is most of those people that you would like to take them away from, they've got the nice expensive ones because they're celebrities.

So.

Yeah.

Unfortunate.

Yeah. It's a fun thing doing a church unity podcast and then realizing the way to get popular is by not talking about unity.

You got to be controversial, man. You got to offend somebody. You got to punch somebody in the nose every once in a while. Yeah.

If it were that easy, if you see someone who doesn't like unity, you should just punch them. There we go. That's a strong. That's a good AI clip. Someone use that.

I like it.

Yeah. All right, so other than, you know, your shows, your. Your own network or had had a hand in it. Let's talk about that first cpa.

I think it started off just a Facebook group and it became a network. Is that the correct.

Yeah, we. We have a network and it's really just hosting for. For people. We have a number of good, good folks on there that I like.

A couple of people I could highlight. Jennifer Sakata has a show called Living the Grace Life, which I love. I think she is. When I first met Jennifer, have you guys heard of.

You guys know Jennifer When?

I don't think so.

You should have her on. She would love it. Um, she. When I first met her, it was at a conference, and she. She said the one thing I love to hear podcasters say.

I love to talk to people. Right. I love. I want to have an interview show. It's like, great. You'll do great. Let's get it together.

And it took her six or eight months, and then she just hit a year, actually.

Nice.

Congrats.

She's great. And the other one I love is Sue Donaldson has a show. Welcome Hearts or Living Legacy Life? And she asked.

I mean, she's had people like Bob got Bob Goff on. She's got a bunch of other authors and yours truly. And she just asked about, how do you live a life that's. That's a.

Leaves a legacy beyond, you know, whatever. Just your. Your possessions, but your kind of impact that you're leaving with people? It's great.

Yeah. Yeah. It's interesting. So I say we have our own network. We're part of our. A different network with Anazole Podcast Network. It's much smaller than cpa.

And ironically, because, you know, we're the Church Unity Podcast, and we're like. I think we're like the flagship right now. I think we still have the most people. Not really sure we're up there.

But it's funny, though, because our network, I feel like, isn't quite as inclusive as yours.

I feel like you're doing a really great job just leaving space for a lot of people to come in, and we're just like, invite only our friends because it's too much of a hassle for that guy named Joshua to deal with.

Well, it is a lot of work, and I really kind of. The theme there is. I wanted it to be the same as cpa. Right. So I wanted. Where we don't.

We don't have theological fights in Christian Podcasters Association. Right. We simply have this one thing in common or two things in common. Jesus and podcasting.

And so I want us to keep the focus on mostly the podcasting, because there's other things we disagree. Yeah.

That's a great exercise in church unity, I think.

Yeah, for sure.

Yeah. Yeah. That's why I wanted to highlight it, because I was like, that's actually pretty cool.

It is good.

And I don't remember if we talked about this before, but that was one of the things that people talk to me about about CPA that they really love is that sense of, hey, we're not, we're not here to fight about those things. People have tried, it's happened.

I could give you a couple examples, but they, I shut that down real quick and it kind of tried to create a space where we can all just talk about the thing, the one thing that we're here to do, not any of that other stuff, which is hard because people are in different places in their spiritual journey, they're in different understandings. I mean, you can just post anything and you're going to get a whole bunch of, a whole bunch of, you know, feedback from, from all kinds of things.

Did you guys see, Speaking of which, did you see. This isn't about you. We're not really going towards unity here. But I posted something about Phil Yancey about the whole situation.

You know, I saw the post and was afraid to click comments because it's Right, right, right. Yeah.

Yes.

The world we live in.

Exactly.

Because I, I, I have a take that I think is trying to go, go bring in all sides and, and just the amount of people, some people were just really vicious and nasty and some of them were very kind. Some of them kindly disagreed and some were like, what the heck do you mean?

I was like, okay, so you get all types and that's just kind of how the world is and where people are. But it was an interesting exercise. I hadn't done that in a long time. I hadn't stirred the pot in a while. So that was fun.

Yeah, yeah, you got to every now and then.

Yeah, every once in a while.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's, it's interesting. So not our show, but like the network as a whole. I think the, the themes kind of been honestly engaging.

So it's like it's by invite only, friends only for Onaza podcast network.

But it's like we're trying to keep it like shows or people who are actually trying to engage and not just trying to say here's my side, here's the answer. Just keep it. We don't want the clear cut stuff just because we're trying to have an be intentional the kind of stuff that we're putting out there.

So a little more gatekeeping than cpa, weirdly enough, even though we're the Unity podcast. And I think what's interesting is it's difficult to find those honestly engaging without it being rage baity or just conflict.

And I know even when we posted an episode not on your Facebook group, but there was another Facebook group, us, and then Josh Patterson shared a different episode too where we just interviewed a guy who was a gay minister, and people were just mad that we even had the conversation.

I'm like, the whole thing is honestly engaging, and you guys clearly didn't even listen to what we said before you started criticizing that we even were willing to talk to the guy. And that's where I'm like, man, come on.

He showed up in my TikTok for you feed the other day, and I was like, who is this? He looks familiar to me. That took me, like, a good couple minutes of, like, looking at his page to be like, oh, he was on the show.

That's so funny. I still don't know what a tick tock for you pages, but that sounds real. I'm. I'm standing my old man ground on tick tock. That's like.

I feel like everybody gets their. Their old man thing and. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You have a few, though.

I've been practicing to be a grumpy old man for a really long time, so I am. Yeah, I understand that.

So once I get old, I'll be prepared, man.

That's right.

I picked mine really early. It's manual cars.

Like, you like your manual. Yeah, yeah.

I don't drive an automatic. I can't drive an automatic. I can, but I won't.

Huh.

All right, well, where.

I just wish that I cared more about cars. Like, the more I wrote, the more I'm like, man, just to be part of conversations, Like, I don't actually care about.

Oh, man.

Yeah. Knowing the car stuff, I just want to be part of people's conversation.

I'm kind of with you. I don't. I don't.

I don't know enough.

I don't care enough about cars to have that opinion. But I will tell you, I did drive a manual. I had, like, it had been maybe 20 years we had.

When we first got married, my wife had a Hyundai that was a, you know, five speed or something. And then we went. We visited Spain last year to visit our daughter, who she was there for.

Nine months, and they were all manual.

Yeah, it was. It was. And I forget what even brand it was, but I'm driving through these little tiny streets in.

In this little town in Spain, and people are like, parting like the Red Sea in front of me, and I'm like, I can't go slower. Like, you guys got to move. And it was an adventure, but we did it. We did. Okay, so it comes back to you.

So if you haven't done it before, it's good to learn.

Yeah. And if anybody has a Christian car talk podcast, you know, let Eric know. The CPA needs that.

Tj.

Yeah, that's my niche. I'm gonna start my own show.

So, Eric, other than shows on your own network or shows that you have a personal hand in, if you were to, like, we're going to detach ourselves because it's not fair to be like, our favorites are. Let me read the ones on my. But if you had something that you were just like, these are the ones you really appreciate, like five or four, six.

Do you want to list 100 really fast? I'll let you. Like, what are. What are some that stand out to you that aren't, you know, super fun?

I went back and I looked like, what have I been listening to the last year? Because it's been a little while, and I haven't really been thinking about what I'm listening to, but.

So one thing that's interesting about this list is a lot of them are connected to organizations. The one I'm really, really loving right now is a show called the Bama Podcast. Have you heard of this? It's Marty Solomon.

And he essentially comes at it from. He's going through scripture from a very Jewish rabbinic kind of. Kind of way.

He's Christian, but he's approaching it from that, with that sort of informed tradition to go through. And I have just found so much life in that podcast just from hearing some of that stuff.

Sometimes I think, sometimes we ask, certainly the world I grew up in, I'm a little older than you guys. The church asked the text to do a lot of work it wasn't doing. So, I mean, we could give examples, all kinds of things. My favorite one is creation.

I believe God created, but I think that narrative. Sometimes we ask it to do a lot of scientific work that I don't think that it does. It's not meant to do that literarily or textually.

So he talks about stuff like that and talks about the bigger story. And that just really refreshes my soul because it makes me go, oh, this is reminder that God is in control, right? That God is working.

And that even when things go bad as you. As they do, when we get to all of his people, he's still working, he's still inviting, he's still calling people to himself. And I need to hear that.

So that's the first one.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's good. Actually. It makes me think of Weird Life. I found this out from somebody who guessed it on another show that is in our network. But this one isn't.

Biologos and Christianity Today, I think are working together for Wonderology. Have you seen anything with that podcast?

Yeah, it's a lot of like, science faith thing, but instead of doing like the big arguments, I think it's more looking at the wonder and what is it in science that actually makes us care or like, invoke, you know, awe instead of just, what are we arguing about now?

Sounds great. All right, I wrote that down. We'll get to that.

Yeah.

Okay.

It's pretty good.

Let me give you. Let me give you three others.

Okay. All right, here we go.

All right. Holy Post. You guys listen to Holy Post.

That's big. Always my. That's always my number one every year.

I love what they're doing, especially with all of their different shows now. So I love it. Loved watching them grow. We had John Hooten, the Guy Houghton. I forget how he says it. He's the.

Their president on come to our CPA member group. And it was just cool. His. His whole way of thinking about what they're trying to do.

And they've clarified it a lot over the last couple years and they're building it and I just love it. Again, a reasonable, I think, kingdom of God centered view of the world and how we interact in it. And I love it.

So that's.

That helps me out.

Yeah. You had Sky Jathani on your show before. I did a couple years ago too. Yeah. I've always wanted to talk to him.

It is weird.

I got one of his books for my dad for Christmas.

That's good. Which one?

The. The commodity one. I can't remember the full dialogue. Yeah, that. Yeah, the Divine commodity. Good time.

Yeah, that's good. The. His book with. Which is. Talks about how we relate with God. Like I. I joked with him. I would add it to the canon if I could, like if. If ever.

And I'm only kind of partly joking there. I think every Christian should read it, particularly at our time when there's so many. He makes this case that, look, there's.

There's all these other ways we can interact with God. We can Try to do things for God. We can try to do things under know, live under God, but that these are not the things that God has asked us to do.

He wants to live with us. And so. And that when you have that perspective, reading scripture is just totally different. Yeah. And it, it's really good.

Anyway, so I'm a huge fan of really him. I think Phil Vischer is funny and the other people are very intelligent.

Yeah, Esau McCall show is pretty good. Yeah, Esau McCall is pretty good too. But that's.

He's very intelligent. I think Caitlyn Chess is great. I am there. Like, I resonate with like Sky's perspective is the one that most closely aligns with me.

And I'm always encouraged by this right there with you.

I think he's a little bit more conservative a doctrine than I've become over the last couple of years. I like his voice better than anybody else is even. I'm like, yeah, I still like. So like where he's at. Yeah. So you said you got, you had three.

So what are the other two?

All right, what. Oh, the other one. That. And I could, I got a, I got a couple, couple more here. But here is this one.

I was just listening to a bonus episode that they did, Devil on the Deep Blue Sea. Have you guys listened to this one?

No, I'll write that down.

This is put out by Christianity Today. This is Mike Kosper, the guy who did the one about Mars Hill.

Oh, wait, I have seen this. I just forgot the name. Sorry.

It's about the Satanic panic. Yeah, I had forgotten. I went to look when I saw this question in your notes that I went like, what have I been listening to last year?

And I remembered this and I started listening to.

They had a bonus episode, Amanda Knox, because her situation is very different or very similar to the, some of the like, hysteria things that had happened that they talked about earlier in the show. So love that show. I love.

And it, again, it's clarifying for me because I grew up like when they're talking about the devil, the, the sort of satanic panic in the, in the 80s. That's what I grew up in, man. I literally remember a, what they call like a missions conference or something that they had at our, at our church.

And I don't, I don't know. They had brought a bunch of people in and there was this one guy talking. He was kind of the main speaker, I think.

And I remember, keep in mind, I'm in elementary school. Right. So I don't. It's like, I don't really know what's going on. I was just there.

But the one thing I remember him talking about was music and satanic drums and things like that. Right. Like all these. All these kind of. It was really in that vein.

So listening to these guys kind of unpack what the satanic panic was, how it kind of spread that some of the, you know, things were really just sort of false, really helped me go. Yeah, okay. I could mix, rewire and reshape shape some things in my brain from really was a very formative time. Yeah.

Yeah. I'm trying to remember the guy's name, but we have a friend who actually, his dad was contacted by a guy who created D and D. And.

Yeah, their story has a lot to do with that satanic parent conversation on D and D and all that.

And talking about Thomas Webster.

Yeah, yeah. Thomas Webster. Thank you.

Yeah.

Tom Webster.

Yeah, yeah. His dad was actually contacted by the creator of D and D. And it was a whole thing because people thought it was so weird.

He was using in D and D at his church and he was like, I don't know why people think this is demonic. This is crazy. Yeah, yeah, it's good. Their story's cool, so. Yeah, yeah, they are cool.

And Gary, I think they have, like, still have the letter from Gary.

Yeah, yeah. And they got a few books and stuff. So if you guys look up Thomas Webster, he's. He's cool.

Eric, did you have another podcast you were about to mention or.

No, the only other one on my list is from my good friend Chris. Darren, you guys know Chris. He's truce. He's got a great show. And again, church history. He sort of looks journalistically into the church and that.

That's always helpful for me. Yeah.

So speaking of church history, I gotta throw out there 1. I've been listening to this one for years. I don't remember the name of the who does it or anything, but it's just five minutes in church history.

It's so simple. It's literally just five minute episodes. Just today in church history. And it's great. Just educational. Sweet. To the point. Tj.

Something that Josh could never do, ever.

I would.

Absolutely not. I couldn't even tell you the name. Five minutes of church history in five minutes. I have to sit there and explain it and it'd be a whole thing.

Yeah, it'd be a struggle.

I get it.

Yeah. I'm a shock. Our listeners. TJ has listened to at least one podcast now, which had not happened at the Time that Eric was on last, so. Tj, that's true.

Yeah. What have you actually listened to?

To my knowledge, if I'm keeping track correctly, I've listened to at least four whole episodes this year. At least four.

This year or last year?

Last year. This year.

That'd be crazy.

I was like, what record breaking numbers. I Probably listen to 4 today, by the way.

Yeah.

I'm just not a podcast person. I'm a music enjoyer. I listen to a lot of music.

I don't listen to many podcasts just because they demand a certain level of focus from me and I'm usually doing other things that require also focus.

Yeah.

You know, I'm adhd. I don't have that problem.

Right.

But I've listened to two episodes of Rethinking Faith with Josh Patterson.

Love Josh.

Love Josh. Show's good. Nice to hear him talk. He's a smart guy, usually. I've also listened to two episodes of Homebrew Christianity with Trip Fuller.

Oh, yeah.

Specifically, I was going to talk with Myron Pinner twice. I love Myron.

Nice, nice. So I gotta. Maybe a weird. Hold on.

Actually a big shout out. I've listened to a third podcast and it is Personalist Manifestos with Michael Morelli.

Oh, yeah, yeah, he's going to be on the show soon. I actually have an email I have to respond to, which is today.

Yeah, yeah, Personal Manifestos.

Michael Morelli tackles a lot of really tough concepts on his show and it's super like highbrow academic content, which is cool, but again, it's something that you.

Have to actually, really.

To retain that information.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure.

But I like what he does over there and he's. He's a cool guy. He's super funny, super in touch with the world.

I'm actually looking for a podcast recommendation, so maybe Eric can help me now just get really on the level here. So, and I mentioned, you know, this kind of like the thing with like the Onazole podcast networks. We're trying to like, do honest engagement.

And for me that means I want to hear every side of like as many topics as I can so I can make my own mind up. And I like to hear people I disagree with, so I can say, okay, that's where they're coming from and try to really see where they're coming from.

Right. And for a long time, you know, I had a lot of shows in the middle that I liked. All the Holy Post shows, like, the things that are closer to me.

For me, it's easier to find them. And that's because, you know, echo chambers exist and the Internet just perpetuates them. Far left in mind you, I love these people. I just.

I think they're a lot more progressive than me. When you talk about, like, Josh Patterson or even Tripp fool or Dan Cook, a lot of them are definitely more liberal in their theology than I am.

Maybe not a ton more liberal than I am, but definitely more liberal than I am. I used to would listen to Al Mulder every day because he had that, like, daily thing or whatever.

And I'm like, yeah, he's far more conservative than me, but some of the stuff he's been saying online and doing stuff lately, I'm like, I in no way want to support this person. Like, just as a human. I'm like, I don't want to support him.

Yeah.

But I don't want to lose all conservative voice that, you know, Like, I still want to hear what's going on in those conversations. I just don't want to support him. So is there another conservation conservative that I can listen to? Like, hard. You know, hard. Right.

Because I, you know, there's some ways I'm probably considered conservative, but we're talking about theology. You know what I mean?

You can always listen to John Piper.

That's hard, too, but that's true. Does he have his own podcast?

I'm sure there's something with his. Probably sermons or something.

Yeah.

Or teaching. I don't know exactly. That would be probably the first person that comes to mind. I don't know. Yeah.

If I'm honest, I haven't kept up with a lot of that end because I'm so annoyed. Not too awesome, but just. I can't even. I don't know. I've come in other ways, actually. I feel like I haven't really moved, but the scale.

Yeah. Yeah. And it's like, what was. The far right has gone so right that I'm like, I'm not sure this is Christian anymore. You know, we're the whole church.

I believe in church unity, but there's some stuff that Al Mohler does that I'm like, I don't see Jesus endorsing this. You know?

Yeah. And without. Without calling out anybody specifically.

I do feel like there has been a syncretism in the last 10 years of synchronizing the Christian faith with American politics, and maybe it was that way before. And I think I've got a story, if you want to hear, about how God kind of called. Called me out of that, but it was. It just. It's not good.

It's not good at all.

Yeah. Yeah. And that's. We're gonna talk a little bit more about it soon on a roundtable on our show.

But like, I think that's where a lot of people get confused on Christian nationalism.

And that goes to the Holy Post really helps me with this is like a lot of people when they say Christian nationalism, they're talking about Christian patriotism. And that's where like, I think it helps to define terms.

And that's where skyjatathani and them actually help a lot because like yo nationalism is actually its own philosophy. That's about the nation should be people like us and putting our nation above other nations. It's about power grabbing.

And to say Christian before that, that's not really congruent. Christianity isn't about power grabbing or seeing everybody else the same as you or making everyone the same as you.

And it's them defining that term really helped me a lot. Yeah. But do you want to talk some about. You said you had a story. I'd like to hear it.

Well, so the story is how I went from being. So I really sort of steeped in right wing politics to kind of going away from that. And it started with a book. So I was.

When I first figured out, and you guys probably know this, you can get books if you have a podcast or if you have a blog. Oh yeah, this is before podcasts really popular. And I had a political blog because that's what I did when I first got out of seminary.

And I was like, hey, I want to. I want to do that. And so I got a book by Os Guinness called, called the Free People Suicide. And I've had Oz on the show a couple times.

And I got to tell him this. I read it, it was great. But he makes a point in there about, about how at one point he's talking about character.

He's like, look, we really have to do is we have to change people's character. It doesn't actually matter. I think we're seeing this right now.

It does not matter what's written on the page of the constitution or the law or whatever. It's the character of the people who are in. Who are enforcing or supposed to check the other people in the. In the government that really matters.

Because if no one will stand up and say, hey, that's wrong, you've just descended into. Into fascism. Right.

So that when he said that I started to ask myself some questions or when like that was kind of One of his points now, I don't think he agrees with this, by the way. Like, I think he was. When I told him, he was like, well, this wasn't the point of the book, but this is where I got out of it.

So then I started asking questions like, hey, listen, okay, if character really is this important, how do you shape a character? What do you do? I started looking around and I. At the time, one of the big debates was the gay marriage debate. You guys remember this?

You know, eventually that got settled, but it got settled by court, right?

What had happened is one side, the, the right side, the right wing side had gone and attempted to influence culture by passing laws, and they passed actually a Marriage amendment in 30 states in California twice, right. Including a national one. And that's enough for like a constitutional amendment. Three fifths, right. Like, I think is what the, the standard is.

But they didn't do that. So they spent millions of dollars, thousands and thousands of hours, man hours. And they got this, they got this passed.

The other side, who was in favor, actually told stories, right?

And so they made shows like Bull and Grace and Broke Mountain and any number, Philadelphia, any number of other stories that help people have a sense about what was right here. Right?

And so all that, and eventually the whole decision gets overturned or gets turned into a court case and the opinion of five people changes, you know, all of that work and wipes away all that work that the, the right wing side had done because they focused on the wrong thing. They focused on the law, not on the character and not on the hearts of people. Right?

So my, this actually is part of the impetus for me going to podcasting because I started to ask myself, when I started to start a podcast, I started to ask, well, what. How do I shape people? How can I help do that?

So instead of having a podcast where it was me, because I wanted to talk about the spiritual journey and instead of saying I want to talk about spiritual practices or whatever, which quite honestly I find kind of boring. Don't tell anybody that. Like, but when I did a ton of classes and all this stuff, it's fine, but it's. It just.

I didn't know, find it that interesting. And I wouldn't certainly have done as many episodes as I did if that's what I had done. I said, what can I do? I can tell stories.

I'm going to tell stories. And instead of me talking about teaching things.

It was me having people walk them through their story, telling me about when was the time when you felt like you. When you were. Came to Christ? When was the time when you, you know, really were learning the way of Christ? How would. What did that look like for you?

Were there passages that were important to you, whether events or people who mentored you, whatever. And then when did you hit the wall? Because that's a normal part of the journey.

And so I just kind of let the interview do the teaching for me and that was. That was it. So. But that one realization, once I realized that it was character and that it was. There was something else there that that actually.

So is the same book kind of just.

I had this epiphany while I was reading it that the interests of the kingdom of God and the interests of the state, we can say the kingdom of the United States for. You know, you get what I mean by that? Those two are very different things. They're different, right? So.

So the state might have an interest in marriage being regulated between all people, regardless of how we want to define it, but the church might have a very different way of defining it. And they don't necessarily have to overlap. Anyway, that was kind of my journey. So that took a lot of time, but that's it.

I think it's really interesting. You mentioned Philadelphia, Rugback Mountain, Will and Grace. And I think that period of creation, it feels wrong to call it content when it's old.

That's just what. But like queer cinema and like TV used to be like, if it made it to a major network, it was good.

Yeah.

Now, now we get, we can get queer slop. They really paved the way. Now you can watch Heated Rivalries.

I now described this show.

Now queer programming could be bad.

Yeah, well, it used to be like that.

I understand people like that show and whatever and I don't want to like geek shame or whatever, but like to me the plot, the acting, everything about Heat of Rivalries is just bad.

And that's like I've come around like I've actually changed my mind when it comes to like same sex marriage and stuff, theologically and stuff, but like literally just as content. Not even evaluating the morality or anything of it. I'm just like, this is just bad tv, man.

I, yeah, I haven't seen that show. So I don't know.

But I think what is different is those shows in the past or the ones that we're talking about, they were first representations, right? So they. So we hadn't seen stuff like that before. Most of us it was like, oh, okay, you know, there's lots of things there. Right. But the.

But today it just is. I think it's represented. They go for representation in every thing and that's okay. I understand why they're doing it.

Don't always appreciate it, but yeah, just where we are.

I think in general, I think in general, though, I think oversaturation really just depletes a message. Which is part of my problem with the more recent Doctor who stuff is like, everything's diverse constantly.

And I'm like, well, but when you do that, there's not actually a message of diversity. Everything's diverse. So nothing's diverse. You know, it's like, know.

I think when you do that for Doctor who, you miss the whole point of the whole show.

Yeah, right.

Is that I, I haven't watched. I. I think they had a special at Christmas. I don't know, but I haven't watched it.

And not this year.

Not this year. Was it last? I don't know, last year they had a few or something. Yeah, I haven't seen. I haven't.

But I haven't watched them because it's more about stuff like that instead of like, yeah, show me the crazy monster. Show me the, you know, the, the fun. What the show's about. The show's an escape to something else.

Overall, I'm still positive the last. On the last couple seasons, there's a few big misses. I just think a lot of their messaging gets lost because they just overdo it.

Did you like David Tennant coming back?

Oh, I loved it. I loved it. I'm a huge David Tennant guy. Yeah, of course. Yeah.

But.

Last thing on this, because I do want to get more to your story because we actually stole your story thing for our show in a weird way.

But I want to touch on to me because again, I've just been geeking out really hard on Adventure Time lately because he watched it all the way through again and it's just on my mind. I think that that was one of the best queer representations, personally, because it wasn't in your face.

It was actually kind of hidden in your face till the end. And actually I watched that before I had changed my mind. I was still like, not for this theologically. And I'm like, I watched that.

I was like, yeah, okay. So obviously these people think differently than me. This story was earned. Like, even when I was against it, I still was like story wise.

That made sense. They earned it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anyway, So I think the power story is really important. That's part of. That's the point of all this.

Easy to get sidetracked. And what you did really helped open my eyes. And we actually incorporated into the whole church.

A lot of times we have new guests, especially if they're from a denomination that maybe we know some of our listeners are going to be a little bit contentious towards. They're going to be like, oh, a Southern Baptist or Mormons aren't Christian, you know, whatever. Like, I love starting with that.

Hey, tell us something about your story, because it really makes it hard to not see someone as a fellow brother in Christ, whatever, when you're like, oh, they're a Catholic. And then you hear the story and you're like, right, that's my story, you know.

Right. I can resonate with that. Right. I can. I can hear that. So, yeah, I think that's one of the big things.

And it is part of maturity, human and spiritual, that you have more respect for other people and their. Their experiences, you know, when you can hear it. Yeah, yeah.

So here.

Do you think that podcast and content creation in general like this are ideal places for ecumenical efforts to be realized outside the walls of the church and, like, still engaging with theology and theophany? Is this ideal?

Is podcasting ideal? Yeah. So I think podcasting is really good at one thing.

Well, actually, it's good at a couple things, but it's really good at having conversations like we're doing. Right. And I think discipleship largely takes place in conversation. That's why we love some of these podcasts that we've.

That we've been talking about.

I can listen to sky and Phil and Caitlin and Esau have a conversation about something, and that helps me make sure I'm shaping my opinions and thoughts about the world. I don't always have to agree with them, and I don't always. But I'm shaping my thoughts around the kingdom of God, right around what is God doing?

And so, yeah, I do, in that way, think that podcasting and online content can be really, really valuable. I think it's neglected by a lot of Christians. I think a lot of pastors are already too busy to even.

Even do that kind of thing or invest in online content. I'm starting to get a little bit. What's the word? Wary. I don't know. Sometimes it's.

I sometimes wonder, do we just think we can somehow tame the beast by feeding it more? You know, I don't know. I don't know if that's Right. I have that question.

I mean, that is how you tame most beasts, I think.

But you feed them. Yeah, it's true. The TikTok beast, though. I don't know. I don't know if that's. I'm not sure. That. Or the algorithm beast. Right. Like, we keep it up.

That's a different monster.

I don't know. So I. I am starting to have maybe some cracks in that, but I do think done right with a good message and consistently. Yeah, I think it's powerful.

Yeah.

So do you think churches, like, should be, like, having their own shows if they can? Is it cheating to just, like, upload your sermon as a podcast?

Yeah, you're throwing me a softball. So that's like. That's good. The.

So it's cheaper, it's faster. It's. You know, I get. I get all those things.

But I also think it betrays a little bit of a bias toward teaching as the method in which disciples are formed. And I don't think that's the only way they're formed. It's valuable. Teaching is valuable, don't get me wrong. But it's not the only way.

And a lot more discipleship happens in conversations. What did Jesus do most often? He was talking to. There's.

He's got sermons, but he also was having conversations with his disciples and with the people around him. So I think I would love to see and encourage any pastors who might listen to this.

How can you create a podcast where you're having conversations with your constituents, your parishioners in the podcast, their concerns? Maybe they don't. Maybe they want to ask an anonymous question. You can address that. That's fine.

But how can you do that in a way that is valuable for their discipleship? And even if you're just making it as a resource for your congregation, maybe other people will listen to it. Right? Maybe they don't.

Maybe you want to grow it or whatever. That's good.

But I wouldn't worry about that so much as I would worry about the discipleship of the people that you're given to care for and think about online tools as a way to do that.

Yeah, a couple things. One thing I actually really appreciated about Al Mohler's podcast before I stopped listening to it was Fridays.

He always did questions from people, and he's reading them. And a lot of times he would choose younger people in high school, whatever.

And I was a little weary about that because I don't like your theology, but I'm like, I like what you're doing because we're in conversation, and I think that's an important bit. I also do want to say to me, it does matter what your purpose is, regardless of what you're putting out there.

So we do release on the network the homily with Pastor Will, and it's his sermons, but we didn't upload it because he wanted to start getting it out there. It was actually my idea because I was looking at our network going, what are we missing?

And I'm like, actually, I would like to have a pastoral word in this network. And it played a function. It wasn't Will going, let's build our church and let's get this out there and get everybody saved.

It was more of a. I saw a hole and was like, I think this fits really well here, actually.

Yeah. Like I said, I. And I totally agree with that. I applaud you for doing that.

I just think a lot of pastors, and this is my impression, from what I've seen, they spend so much energy on Sunday morning, and then they wonder why their people are being shaped more by politics and the news than they are by their sermons. Your sermon isn't that good, man. Your sermon is, like. It may be encouraging, but it. Okay, that's fine.

It plays an important role, but it's not the only thing. So if you want to really disciple people, you need to have a bigger imagination. Yeah.

Yeah. And that's.

That's right.

I think podcasts are cool. I do think it depends. Like, every tool, it obviously depends.

I think there are people who end up with an echo chamber, and you're just listening to other people like you.

And it's like you get mad, and the person you're listen to is mad, so you feel justified in being mad, and it just kind of circulates, and I hate that kind of stuff.

But then I think if you use it as, like, I'm trying to hear some different perspectives, or if you're listening primarily to podcasts that are having conversations, not just telling you what to believe, I think it can be a lot more healthy. So it does think depends on the podcast depends on how you're using the tool. All those kinds of things.

You know, the usual, let's nuance this stuff that I like to say and annoy people with 100%.

Yeah, agreed.

So, Eric, what is the future for Christian podcasts and the CPA in particular, but, like, what's your prophetic vision?

Okay, I've been thinking about this because I knew you're going to ask me this, and to be honest with you, I'm not entirely sure. I've been following the podcast industry for well over a decade now. I think there's. We're at an interesting time. Things are getting bought up.

Things are getting a lot of celebrities and bigger institutions are using podcasts, and I think that's sucking a lot of attention toward the top. That's good. It's good for us if more. But like we said, it's good if there's more podcasts and more people are aware, which has happened.

Like, there was a. For a long time. They were tracking. They still track this, but they were tracking, like, when will it tip over from, you know, under 50% to over 50%.

The number of people who first are aware of podcasts to the number of people who are listening to podcasts every week? Well, that happened a couple years ago. And so we're there and, like, people know what podcasts are. My.

My first guest, some of my first guests on my podcast, I recorded the interview and they were like, what are you going to do with this? They had no idea.

It was.

It wasn't there yet. Right. Okay. But we're not there anymore.

We're.

So where does it go? I.

Where.

Where does. And where does Christian podcasting go? Honestly, I. I've been kept pondering this a lot, and I wish I had a great answer for you.

I'm thinking that you're probably going to have. We do see. Just. Even in my list, right.

You see a whole lot of people who are like, institutions, who are building content, and I think you're see a whole lot more of that going forward. I do hope to encourage the individual podcaster. I think you got to be better with your message.

You can't just start a show and like, you guys have it done dialed in. Like, you know what you want to talk about? You need to know that and kind of. Kind of carve out a lane that you can.

That you can run on, or else it's just gonna be. It's hard. It's gonna be much, much harder than it used to be to kind of Even feel things out for where you want to be.

So, yeah, I'm glad you said that too. Because even when we started, which was seven years and 300 episodes ago, most of my family members had to be like.

And they of course would go, is that like on the radio?

That's fine. No, not really. Yeah. Yeah. I personally, and this is maybe I don't think this is cynical. This is just like how my brain works.

I'm like, it's a form of media. So it's going to end up like Christian TV or Christian books, especially Christian books are what I'm thinking of.

And it's going to be like a lot of these big networks or big whatever, and there's going to be producing a lot of really basic, basically feel good books that just have a name that people like and you can read it and then you'll have a few, you know, publishers or whatever that you're like, okay. I know that if these people are publishing it, it's probably more educational, it's more theopraxy.

My friend Joe Day has a podcast network that was once called the Happy Day Podcast. I think it's like KM Radio or something now.

But I know they're going to be the more practical stuff we try to be, the more like we're engaging and just kind of more conversational CPAs open to people.

But I could see it going the way of like books of like you're going to have some people who just, we don't even know if they wrote the book, but their name was going to sell a book, so they wrote a book and that's like what the big publisher going to put out.

And you're going to have to really know either the creator because there's going to be always going to be indie stuff, I think, or you're going to have to know the network or know the people. Like, hey, is the publisher actually going to be putting out stuff that's trustworthy or is this just going to be feel good stuff? Slosh, you know?

Right.

Maybe that was cynical.

Always the cynic.

No, I think what you're calling for is discernment. Right? It is going to take more discernment for sure. I think it's always been the case.

But you'll, you'll have to figure out what resonates with you and what you, what you like and where you're. Where you want to be. So.

Yeah. Yeah. All right, Good stuff.

Well, on that positive note, hopefully you guys know that you could trust CPA and all podcast network we're doing our our best to put out stuff that's not just feel good slosh, but genuine content by real people. And there's always going to be good creators out there.

And anytime I run across them, I'm going to make sure to shout them out because, you know, like, Mark Flower isn't part of the network. Grub and Grace, though, is definitely a show you guys should listen to. That's my last podcast, Shout out for the day. Well, that's not true.

We'll do more in network at the end because I like Mark.

Yeah, Mark's fantastic.

He can't play cornhole at all. He's a cool guy.

That makes him a good guy.

But you know, one thing we do always like to do before we wrap up our shows is just to ask for a single practical action, something tangible our listeners could just go and do at the end of the show that's going to help better engender Christian unity. So what's Eric, what's something practical our listeners could go do right now that's going to help bring the church together a little bit better?

The one thing I think that you can do to engender church unity is to ask a question before you get mad, right? So if somebody says something, you're like, oh no, ask. Ask at least one question.

And you're even better if you can ask three questions just and dig in and try to say, what do you mean by that? That's a simple one. You can ask about a particular way word they used or a phrase like, tell me about that, how'd you come to that conclusion?

Is a good one. Those are questions that bring the temperature down and bring the understanding up. If you can do that. So my, my kind of motto is get curious, right?

If you can get curious, you will create a whole lot more empathy, which is not toxic, by the way. That's a whole different podcast. But you create more empathy for yourself, not only for other people, but other people will understand you as well.

Yeah, I assume that goes for online too. If you see something 100% ask a question.

So if we all, if we all get curious, what changes do we see.

Happen in the world?

Well, I hope a couple things. One, I hope we develop a thicker skin, right? So everybody's not so darn offended all the time. That would be nice and angry.

Amen. Hallelujah.

Yeah.

And I think we, I think we see more conversations and look, I don't have to agree with you, I don't have to agree with everybody in, in order to have a conversation with you in order to understand that human. I think this is kind of a big part of your. Your show and your message, but I do. At least it's incumbent on me to not hate you. Right. I need to.

I need to figure out how to do that. Well, we're called to love. We're called to be people who are known by our love and asking questions. This was often Jesus's go to, right.

Was to ask somebody a question, what do you want? What do you need?

For me, it's also. It's important to remember that unity is not conformity.

Right, Right. We're not always going to agree on everything, and we may have significant disagreements. My. My daughter is 23 and she has a Bible study in our house.

And they refer to Read. They're starting First Peter, and they read. There's a. There's a. There's a right at the very beginning.

There's a little trinitarian section in verse two, and it talks about the foreknowledge of the Father. Well, now you've brought up predestination. And so then they were all kind of going, you know, I had to come in and referee a little bit. Not really.

They weren't getting out of hand. They just want to have some questions. Yeah, but we're not going to agree on stuff like that all the time.

Right.

But we can. We can come to a place where we go, hey, I see why you think that. Here's why I think this. We can still love each other without agreeing on that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

So before we wrap up, I don't know if you remember, it's been a while, but we like to ask everyone what their God moment is.

And it's just a moment in their life recently where they saw God, whether it's a blessing, a moment of worship, a challenge, whatever it may be, always make Joshua go first. Gives the rest of us plenty of time to think about our God moment. So, Josh, do you have a God moment for us this week?

Yeah, yeah, I have a few. But I've been actively actually doing some of the other podcasts I supposedly help with, like the homily and whatnot.

And one of them is just me be living water and I going through the book of Daniel and Les Miserables. And instead of doing what I usually do is like, yeah, my memory is good enough. I know all this stuff.

I was like, yeah, I'm actually going to read and study through it as I go, even if I do already have a plan. And man, book one Chapter four, Les Mis.

You just hear Bishop Muriel just going on all these fields of, like, what it actually means to give grace, be grace, and is the system what's sinful or the person? And I'm like, crap. Yeah. I wasn't ready to be hit with all that and actually had to reread that chapter because I needed it.

So that's gonna be my God moment. Yeah.

Finding out that classics are classics for a reason.

Really?

Like, every time.

Yeah, I like it.

Really annoying for me. My God moment. You know, I'm a big family guy. Not the show. I don't really. It's funny, I guess.

It's like you knew what I was gonna say. Yeah.

But I've gotten to spend more time with my family recently, and my sister quit her job, and she's just.

Wow.

Not worried about it at all.

Crazy.

Not worried about it at all. Which speaks to, I hope, the comfort she feels in God to not have to worry about it and the rest of us who are willing to support her and be there.

So it is a blessing and a challenge. We'll see which one it is more of.

Yeah. Yeah.

So, Eric.

Yeah, tell us. I. I've got a couple I could point to, but one I'm gonna point to because it was such a blast from the past. You guys are younger.

Do you remember Petra?

I know, but I'm like rock formation. I grew up living under a rock.

So it was a band. Okay. They're banned. They were. They were. Right. 7, 70s, 80s, 90s. They were like the best band. Christian band. They were my favorite.

So they haven't put out an album in 20 years, and they just put one out this last week, and it's called Hope. And I listened to this thing because. Kind of. Kind of thinking a little bit, you know, like, is this going to be any good?

You know, like, I don't know. Probably. I don't know. They're all 20 years older, and I absolutely love it. It is a. It's got. I mean, I'll say this.

It's got the right amount of cheese. You know, I finally long a few years ago, I decided actually, cheese is really good. I like. I like a certain amount of cheese.

Cheeseburgers are greater than hamburgers.

That's correct. Right. So.

So why am I getting mad if something's a little bit cheesy and it's just got its moments, but it reminded me of what Christian music used to be, or at least the way I experienced it.

Yeah.

My. One of my buddies who I immediately texted as soon as I listened to. It was like, dude, you got to hear this. This is great.

Because we used to listen to them all the time and go to concerts together. He. He said, I love that they're actual real songs. They're not designed to be worship songs. They are designed to be about a thing.

And they each have a message, which is what Bob Hartman was always so good at in his writing. And so good guitar licks, solos, stuff that I love that nobody does anymore.

Yeah.

So it was. It's just great. And it just reminded me like, I just had this sense of, oh, this is. This is. Yeah, this.

I remember not only the feeling this way, but just being encouraged by music in this way that I just haven't had in a long time. And that was great. I was grateful for that. Yeah, it's really good. Have you heard it?

No. God, no.

But I'm glad you brought it up.

Because I. I have been listening to Flyleaf lately.

Okay.

So it's similar. They didn't come out with anything new.

Yeah, I don't. I mean, it's probably. Maybe it's not your style. It's interesting. They've got a couple of different. Somebody asked which.

Which album does it most closely resemble from back in the day? And it's. I said it was kind of a little bit of everything. There's these little, you know, little throwbacks to other stuff that they did back in.

In the. In the day. But anyway, it was. It was just the fact that, hey, this. This reminds me.

This encourages me in a way that I just hadn't been in a long time through music. And so I was really grateful for that.

Yeah, that's awesome. I actually.

Going to listen to it.

Just so we're clear.

I did queue it up.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, me too.

It's good stuff.

I actually reminded me recently, I was talking about, this is going to be really weird how the Jonas Brothers hype from last year actually got me into Switchfoot.

Because hearing some of their music reminded me that there was an interview they did when they did Beautiful Letdown cover where they were like, yeah, Switchfoot was actually one of our big inspirations. Because I was hearing something like my wife was listening to last year. I'm like, I can kind of hear the Switchfoot influence.

And then it made me want to listen to Switchfoot and not Jonas Brothers. End.

Nice.

Same thing. Switch what lyrics. He knew what he was doing. Yeah, it's good stuff.

I never got. They were a little down my. Down the road for me. Like, I Never really got into them.

But not a switch foot, fly leaf, thousand foot crutch.

More of a hairband guy. So.

Hey, hey, I get it. I don't have hair. So out of envy. I just refuse to listen. One of.

One of my, you know, top moments of the last two or three years was seeing Journey and Def Leppard at Coarse Field on the.

Okay, that actually sounds super awesome.

It was awesome.

Yeah.

It was so great. It was good.

There's no, like, glam Christian rock bands. There's no Christian clam metal.

They're out there. They used to be. There used to be. But anyway, go check. Check this one out. I got. I got a list for you if you need.

Yeah. Hey.

Was the definition of a glam Christian band.

We have a. We have a music podcast. We might, you know, we could talk about some of those.

Okay.

So if you like this episode, first, thank you. I mean it. Also, thank you for giving us your time. Even if you didn't like the episode. And either way, please consider sharing it with a friend.

Share with an enemy. Share with your cousins if you didn't like it.

If you didn't like it, share with your enemies and still your cousin. Either way, share it with your cousin. Yeah, yeah.

Be cordial.

Yeah, yeah.

Keep polite. But you can check out our new website. Purchase one of our T shirts. Josh is wearing one now, and usually, almost always he is.

I like to wear my board, so I usually take them off when I get home.

I have two different sets because I just keep getting samples sent to me or, like, misorders. So I have, like, the black ones I wear to work because we have to wear black. Yeah.

And then the ones that aren't black, I wear while we record and stuff because I just love comfort color shirts. They're just. They're nice. Comfy. Yeah. They're comfortable. Yeah. Also, check out some of the other shows on the Onazole podcast network.

You know, we mentioned that a lot this episode. Check out the Christian Podcast Association Network as well.

But, you know, I mentioned I've been helping with those shows I've been neglecting, so I'm gonna shout out some of those. So check out the homily that actually has new episodes. Check out the Bible After Hours that's gonna have a new episode by the time this is out.

And check out some joyful noises. We got some stuff going on there, too, which is that music podcast I briefly mentioned.

Yeah.

All right.

But we do hope you enjoyed it. Coming up, we're gonna be having Andrew FOUTS. Return to discuss Christian persecution around the world and what open doors Canada is doing to help.

And then we're gonna take a week off for Joshua's birthday. Alleged thank you slash anniversary. It is both because he cheated.

After that, we're gonna be having same with like, you know, couldn't do the same day because he wanted to get married on Super Bowl Sunday. By the way, if you're still listening, you deserve.

It wasn't on purpose. I didn't know this guy decided to.

Get married on Super Bowl Sunday.

Did anybody come to the.

Yeah, me.

Yeah. Yeah.

It was. It was a thing. Most people went and then after the wedding, we just went to watch the super.

We had a Super bowl party, basically. Yeah. Yeah.

That's actually kind of cool.

Yeah, it was kind of cool. I also knew one of the people playing. Playing in the super bowl shout out Debo Samuel. We went to high school together and.

My wife did the we're going to the super bowl thing at the part of her vows because we were going to Disney World. So it fit. That was the honeymoon. It's a good bit.

Anyway, after that break, we're going to be having a round table on church engagement, focusing on topics like social justice and Christian nationalism. Finally, at the end of season one, Francis Chan is going to be on the show.

Yeah.

He doesn't know it though, so someone does have to tell him.

Completely unaware. Yeah, let's believe.

So probably invite him for us because we. We won't. We're lazy.

Ish.

Lazy is.