CNLP 692 | Tim Ross on Deconstruction, Destruction and Reconstruction, Code-Switching as a Pastor, and Podcasting as the Future of Ministry AI transcript and summary - episode of podcast The Carey Nieuwhof Leadership Podcast
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Episode: CNLP 692 | Tim Ross on Deconstruction, Destruction and Reconstruction, Code-Switching as a Pastor, and Podcasting as the Future of Ministry
Author: Art of Leadership Network
Duration: 01:54:17
Episode Shownotes
Tim Ross talks about the difference between deconstruction, destruction, and reconstruction. Plus, the pressure to code switch as a pastor, how podcasting might be the future of ministry, and the meteoric rise of his podcast—The Basement. 🔗 Show Notes 📩 On The Rise Newsletter 🗣️ Preaching Cheat Sheet 🧠 The
Art of Leadership Academy 🎥 Watch on YouTube Follow @careynieuwhof Follow @theartofleadershipnetwork This episode is sponsored by: CONVOY OF HOPE Shop for gifts that do more than sit on a shelf. Share the love of Christ with those in need with Convoy’s 2024 Gift Catalog. Visit: ConvoyofHope.Org/Carey Brought to you by The Art of Leadership Network
Full Transcript
00:00:00 Speaker_02
The Art of Leadership Network. I was so pissed. I was so incensed. I was so disoriented. I'm like, what is happening? In all my years of ministry, I haven't felt this.
00:00:20 Speaker_00
Welcome to the Kerry Neuhof Leadership Podcast. It's Kerry here and I hope our time together today helps you thrive in life and leadership. Hey, wherever this finds you, welcome to all of our new subscribers. Welcome.
00:00:32 Speaker_00
And to those of you who've been here for a long time, so glad that you keep doing this because then we get to keep doing this. And today, I'm going to take you to Dallas where I sat down
00:00:42 Speaker_00
Not in the basement, but with a guy who started The Basement Podcast. He's had a meteoric rise. He's upset the gram on Instagram and social channels. I'm talking about the one and only Tim Ross. And we are gonna go there.
00:00:55 Speaker_00
We talk about the meteoric rise of his podcast, deconstruction, destruction, reconstruction, code switching, and how podcasting, he thinks, could be the future of ministry.
00:01:08 Speaker_00
So we're gonna talk about all that today and, hey, I want to thank our partners, Convoy of Hope. You know, you're Christmas shopping now, or at least you should be thinking about it. What about doing gifts that do more than sit on a shelf?
00:01:20 Speaker_00
Share the love of Christ with those in need with Convoy's gift catalog. Go to convoyofhope.org. Well, Tim Ross is a professional podcaster, social media influencer, author, preacher, and businessman.
00:01:36 Speaker_00
His unorthodox approach to spirituality has guided him on a constant journey of progression and has garnered a lot of attention of millions of people in the marketplace.
00:01:46 Speaker_00
He spent years preaching and teaching for places like the Potter's House in Dallas, Gateway Church in South Lake, Texas. And in 2015, he founded Embassy City Church in Irving, Texas.
00:01:58 Speaker_00
In 2022, he began his journey from pastor to social media influencer by merging spirituality and entertainment with the launch of his podcast, The Basement. The podcast currently has 300,000 subscribers and more than 25 million views in 2023.
00:02:15 Speaker_00
He's expanded into business with the launch of his technology company, B-Side, which includes the B-Side app. Beyond the pulpit, Tim also speaks to corporate business leaders, conferences, and festivals all over the world.
00:02:27 Speaker_00
It's a fascinating conversation. We also did a flip the mic, so I'm going to be on his show. So, hope you really enjoy both of these conversations. I think it was five hours sitting on that couch having some great conversation with Tim.
00:02:42 Speaker_00
You can shop for more than a gift this year with Convoy of Hope's gift catalog. So, you know, usually you buy things and people, sometimes they appreciate it, sometimes they re-gift it. Well, what if you did something totally different?
00:02:56 Speaker_00
What if you went to their Convoy of Hope gift catalog and got something like a baby care kit for someone who survived a disaster, or food and water for a family, or a solar lantern and phone charger, or a whole lot more.
00:03:10 Speaker_00
And don't just do this for you. You can buy gifts for the people you love by selecting the In Honor of box at checkout. It's that easy. So shop for the gifts that do more than sit on a shelf.
00:03:22 Speaker_00
Share the love of Christ with those in need with Convoy's 2024 gift catalog. Go to convoyofhope.org. That's convoyofhope.org. And now my conversation with Tim Ross. Tim, it's good to be in the basement with you.
00:03:38 Speaker_00
I'm grateful that you came here to do your show. We're in Dallas, I guess, technically.
00:03:45 Speaker_03
That's right.
00:03:46 Speaker_00
And so there's a lot we're going to talk about.
00:03:49 Speaker_03
Okay.
00:03:49 Speaker_00
But I want to talk about the basement. Yes, sir. Which is not in the basement. I thought we'd be going into the basement of your house. We are on the second floor.
00:03:57 Speaker_02
Yeah, the Texas soil.
00:03:59 Speaker_00
It's like Dax Shepard.
00:04:00 Speaker_02
Yeah. The Texas soil won't allow for a proper basement. That's right.
00:04:05 Speaker_00
I knew that about Texas.
00:04:06 Speaker_02
Yeah, it shifts too much. Yeah.
00:04:08 Speaker_00
So we're here on the upper floor. So the basement is a metaphor.
00:04:13 Speaker_02
It is.
00:04:13 Speaker_00
Yeah.
00:04:14 Speaker_02
Yeah. So it's based on an open vision that God gave me when I was 30. And I don't want it to sound deep. All a vision is, is a dream that you have when you're awake. Right?
00:04:23 Speaker_02
And so I had this vision and I'm walking down the street and there's a, I walk around the corner and there's this 100 story building. Okay. and come all white, 100-story building.
00:04:37 Speaker_02
And from the street level, this could only happen like in a dream or a vision, I can actually hear music and laughter and people talking from the 100th story. So I walk into the building.
00:04:52 Speaker_02
Walk into the building, it's all white, sterile, no wayfinding, no art, no decor, no nothing. And there's an elevator. So I step into the elevator. Step into the elevator and there's a button with an L on it for lobby, which is where I entered.
00:05:09 Speaker_02
And you're seeing this while you're awake? Yeah, while I'm awake. I'm watching this whole vision. And above the L, there's a button for 100, 1-0-0. There are no buttons 1 through 99. Wow. It's L and then it's 100. Okay.
00:05:25 Speaker_02
So I press 100, and I start going up, right? And it's a hundred stories, so my ears are popping, all this happening. The higher I go up, the more self-conscious I become, to where I'm like, do I have any stains on my shirt or my jeans wrinkled?
00:05:43 Speaker_02
Do I even deserve to be up here? I'm just starting getting really insecure and self-conscious the higher we go. As we get to the top, I become intrinsically aware that everybody on this floor is a very influential person in the body of Christ. Wow.
00:06:02 Speaker_02
Nameless and faceless. But there's a gravity. I know that these are influential people in the body of Christ. So we get to the 100th floor, the door is open.
00:06:15 Speaker_02
There's a long hallway that leads down to three steps and it's like a beautiful New York City penthouse, high rise, living room, posh,
00:06:29 Speaker_02
beautiful, all these people, beyond that living room, I can see the balcony, and there's a lot of more people out there, and again, it's just a long hallway to get to it.
00:06:40 Speaker_02
I step off the elevator, and to my far left and my far right, I could not see this when the doors opened, only when I stepped off.
00:06:52 Speaker_02
There are bikini-clad women to my left holding silver chargers, and it's a line of them all the way down the hallway, holding silver chargers with every sin, vice, and weight you could possibly imagine.
00:07:09 Speaker_02
On the far right, there are Speedo clad men, 2% body fat ripped. All of these women on this side were gorgeous.
00:07:17 Speaker_00
These guys- This is a vision.
00:07:19 Speaker_02
Yeah, yeah. These guys are ripped, handsome, silver chargers, thin weight vice. So I'm thinking to myself, this must be the test. I can't get down there if I to come to the temptations of what's right here.
00:07:39 Speaker_02
So let me put my head down and look at my feet and just walk straight down, right? So I get down to the end of the hall and I go down to three steps.
00:07:49 Speaker_02
And you know, like if my boys walked through here right now, it would make you turn your head and at least look.
00:07:59 Speaker_00
Yeah, we met them earlier.
00:08:00 Speaker_02
Yeah, yeah, right, right. So nobody looks up at me. I'm entering this room from what seems like the only access point, and nobody looks up. Nobody makes eye contact.
00:08:11 Speaker_02
And so I'm standing there for a few minutes, and about eight feet away from me, there's two guys talking. And I'm not close enough to hear what they're saying, but I can see their mouth moving. They're having some chatter.
00:08:29 Speaker_02
And I look down, Carrie, and they're both holding something from the chargers.
00:08:37 Speaker_02
And the moment I notice it, one of the guys breaks eye contact with the guy he's talking to, looks at me, looks me up and down, notices I'm not holding anything, goes right back to his conversation.
00:08:52 Speaker_02
That's the only time I'm noticed, the only time I've acknowledged the whole time. I realize everybody on this floor is holding something from the Silver Charter. So a few more minutes, and then I'm like, I don't think I'm supposed to be,
00:09:07 Speaker_02
So I turn around and walk back up the steps. And now the bikini-clad women are on my right and the speedo guys are on my left. And the bikini-clad women are a problem. I mean, that is, they're attractive, right? I'm not attracted to this side.
00:09:27 Speaker_02
They could probably beat me up though. But this side, it's like, oh Lord. So again, I'm looking at my feet and I go straight back to the elevator. Elevator doors close, I'm about to press L to go back down to the lobby.
00:09:42 Speaker_02
I see a faint button underneath the L when it's time to go down that I did not see going up. It's a faint button and it has a B on it. So I press B. I press B, I go down 101 stories, okay?
00:10:01 Speaker_02
ears are popping again, I get down to the bottom, as it rests at the bottom, I can hear laughter and talking and just this life-giving kind of joy before the elevator doors even open. Wow.
00:10:19 Speaker_02
When the doors open, oh, one of the things that I have to point out is that on the 100th floor, there were only the personalities, like the big, Personalities, well-known. Church leaders? Church leaders, again, nameless and faceless.
00:10:37 Speaker_02
All with something in their hand, right? But like no spouses, no children, no, you know what I mean? So these folks have compromised. They're the people, right?
00:10:48 Speaker_02
On this, when these doors open, it is husbands and wives and friends and cousins and family and kids and everybody. As soon as the doors open, everyone turns their attention towards me. They start cheering. They yank me off the elevator.
00:11:04 Speaker_02
They're hugging me. They're smacking me. Oh, my God. And this one guy grabs me by both shoulders. He's shaking me. He's like, oh, my God, dude, I am so glad you got down here. I'm so glad you're down here with us.
00:11:17 Speaker_02
He said, man, not too many people that go up there make it down here. We are so glad you made it down here. Scene. That's the end of the vision.
00:11:34 Speaker_00
That, wow. And that's the basement.
00:11:39 Speaker_02
So I asked the Holy Spirit, what the heck was that? Like, what was this? What was that? And the Holy Spirit told me, he said, Tim, everybody thinks the goal is to get to the top. He said, but the goal is to get to the bottom.
00:11:56 Speaker_02
He said, I haven't called people to get to the, on this floor. I've called people down to the basement. He said, if Jesus Christ is the chief cornerstone, what floor would you want to live on? And I was like, I think I want to be right here.
00:12:09 Speaker_02
And then he said, get as many people to the basement as you can. And that's the vision. That's the vision he gave me. I was 30 years old when he gave me that vision.
00:12:19 Speaker_00
Wow. How did that, when did you launch The Basement? Two years ago. I was going to say, it's pretty recent.
00:12:25 Speaker_02
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:12:26 Speaker_00
But it's been a philosophy since 30. Been a philosophy.
00:12:29 Speaker_02
So, so I'm a disciple maker.
00:12:30 Speaker_00
Yeah, yeah.
00:12:31 Speaker_02
Juliet and I are disciple makers. We, we homeschooled our kids because we just knew the public school system wasn't going to disciple them like we were.
00:12:39 Speaker_01
Yeah.
00:12:39 Speaker_02
Like, it wasn't like, we're scared of the world. We were just like, we're better disciple makers than any ISD in Texas, right? So we're disciple makers.
00:12:51 Speaker_02
So I've been telling this basement philosophy to every single person I've mentored and discipled for the last 19 years. And I've I've just drilled it into them. I had no idea that God wanted to scale that philosophy. I didn't know that.
00:13:08 Speaker_00
And here you are.
00:13:09 Speaker_02
And here we are.
00:13:09 Speaker_00
Okay, well, let's start on the pod. I want to go in a lot of directions because you've had such a multifaceted ministry career, musician, poet, rapper, comedian, pastor, podcaster. Incomplete list, I'm sure. Right, right, right. Dot, dot, dot.
00:13:28 Speaker_00
Dot, dot, dot, dot. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, you know, we got a lot of young leaders listening.
00:13:33 Speaker_01
Yeah.
00:13:34 Speaker_00
And they're thinking, I want to get into a podcast. So, what made you think podcast? Because the argument, like I started 10 years ago, just over 10 years ago. The argument even then was, oh gosh, the market's flooded, right?
00:13:47 Speaker_00
Like, I thought I was late to the game. Over 5 million.
00:13:49 Speaker_02
Yeah.
00:13:50 Speaker_00
5 million?
00:13:50 Speaker_02
There's over 5 million podcasts.
00:13:51 Speaker_00
I think there were 5 in 2014. That's why we got a toehold. Yeah. But what made you think that it wasn't oversaturated? Because yours has really taken off.
00:14:00 Speaker_02
Because I got a word from God.
00:14:02 Speaker_00
There you go. There's a good answer.
00:14:04 Speaker_02
That's a good answer. I promise you, I was minding my own business. September of 2021, our sixth anniversary, the month of our sixth anniversary, the Holy Spirit gave a prophetic.
00:14:16 Speaker_00
This is church?
00:14:16 Speaker_02
This is church. I'm a pastor.
00:14:18 Speaker_00
Our church anniversary. So you're a full-time pastor.
00:14:20 Speaker_02
I'm a full-time pastor at the time, sixth anniversary. A prophetic word comes through one of our friends. And it's about, there's going to be a change in your leadership. There's about to be a change in the season of head.
00:14:32 Speaker_02
And I'm thinking, you're absolutely right. Our church is bursting at the seams. We need a new building. I need to change the org chart. So there is like, I'm a literal person. So I'm like, you're absolutely right. You're on, we don't have to stone you.
00:14:44 Speaker_02
Your word is, your prophetic word is actually gonna come to pass. So four days later, the Lord goes, hey, go listen to that word again. I listened to the word again, Carrie, and I thought my friend was overdubbed.
00:14:57 Speaker_02
I'm like, she didn't say this four days ago. There's no way, there's no way. And all I heard the Lord saying was, your season as a lead pastor is coming to an end. So that was September of 21. March of 22, God shows me who my successor is.
00:15:15 Speaker_02
April, I have a conversation with him. May, the Lord says, I need you to do a podcast. How do you discern that? A friend of mine that I know and love, Byron Copeland, his son and his son's friend was doing a podcast and they asked me to be on it.
00:15:34 Speaker_01
Okay.
00:15:35 Speaker_02
So I'm like, I'll do it for the young bucks. You know, I'm an older head now. I'll be the guy to come in and hang out with the youngins, right? And so I sit down, I do the pod with them. It was cool.
00:15:52 Speaker_02
I get up and I hug everybody, I start walking out the door and the Holy Spirit says, I need you to do a podcast. My response was, I'd rather throw a penny in the ocean.
00:16:03 Speaker_00
What was the hesitation?
00:16:06 Speaker_02
I'm an introvert. Like, why would anybody listen to my podcast? There's already five million of them. They go find something, go... Somebody else needs to do this, but I'm good. He's like, no, you need to do the podcast. So I said no four times.
00:16:28 Speaker_02
I had precedent for no four times because Moses said no four times. I knew not to go five, right? I didn't have biblical precedent for five times. So I didn't go five. But I just remember, I said, if you want me to do it, I'll do it.
00:16:45 Speaker_02
And then he was like, it's the basement, like call it the basement. And I was like, oh, okay. I didn't know who was going... Oh, this is what he said, and this is the part that scared the hell out of me.
00:16:56 Speaker_02
He said, the same way you have discipled and mentored people privately, that's the way I need you to talk publicly. Wow. To which I responded, I'm gonna get canceled.
00:17:10 Speaker_00
Because it's too uncensored, unfiltered? Yeah.
00:17:13 Speaker_02
I said, you know how I talk privately. I've had to... I'm from LA. My older brother founded a gang. I'm from the hood. If you want me to talk like that publicly, I'm gonna get canceled." And he's like, get canceled. Like, go ahead, get canceled.
00:17:36 Speaker_02
In some ways I did, but it helped me to identify the audience I was called to. Right. And so that's what we've been doing the last two years.
00:17:49 Speaker_00
So last two years, you thought of this, you made a couple of decisions early on. One was, we're only doing this in person. Yes. So when you and I met late last year, you're like, you know, you're so kind. You're like, I love your show.
00:18:04 Speaker_00
Really joy to meet you. I need you to be on my podcast, but I only do it in person.
00:18:09 Speaker_03
That's right.
00:18:09 Speaker_00
So I was like, okay, next time I'm in Dallas, which is now, and I'm here and I'm at your house, which is awesome. Why that decision?
00:18:20 Speaker_02
Proximity is very, very important. It was so important to Jesus that he became human. Right. Emmanuel, God with us. I do not think he could be a good intercessor for us on the right hand of the Father unless he had spent time with us. Right.
00:18:43 Speaker_02
The other thing is, Kerry, it's hard to hate up close. Yeah. Right? Yeah. And so proximity does something to the nervous system. Right? There's an attunement that takes place.
00:18:58 Speaker_02
And if one is curious enough... First of all, if you're curious, you can't be offended. Right. So if you... Because you can't hold both of those spaces at the same time.
00:19:08 Speaker_00
I hadn't thought about that.
00:19:09 Speaker_02
So curiosity kills offense. And if you're curious enough about an individual... then you will create space so that they could be fully seen, fully heard, fully known, fully loved, even if they're not fully agreed with.
00:19:26 Speaker_02
And so I think four out of five ain't bad. I think everybody is owed the first four. Agreement is not obligatory. Not a human right.
00:19:35 Speaker_02
Yeah, it's not a human right to be agreed with, but fully seen, fully heard, fully known, and fully loved, I believe this is the teachings of Jesus. And God is four out of five. with us. He fully sees us, fully hears us, fully knows us, fully loves us.
00:19:51 Speaker_02
Probably don't agree with everything that we think or do. Definitely. Definitely doesn't. Right?
00:19:56 Speaker_00
So yeah, that's why proximity is so important. Right. But it's really blown up. I mean, your podcast, you did video first. Yeah, we started with video and audio at the same time and gave people an opportunity.
00:20:10 Speaker_00
Which is growing faster, the audio or the video? Video. Video. Yeah, yeah. So your YouTube presence is probably the strongest. Yeah, it is. And that was a complete morph for you. So when did you step back?
00:20:26 Speaker_00
And we're going to go back to your lead pastor days and some of the other things you're doing.
00:20:29 Speaker_01
Yeah.
00:20:30 Speaker_00
But I'm always interested in rapid growth. That's just... something that's always fascinated me, it's got ups, it's got downs. So how long did you hold the, I'm leading a church and I'm also a podcaster intention, how long were those? Six months.
00:20:45 Speaker_00
Six months.
00:20:45 Speaker_02
Six months, because the first pod was July 6th of 2022. And I didn't even know, God hadn't even told me when to transition to church yet.
00:20:56 Speaker_05
Right.
00:20:56 Speaker_02
But we started the first pod release while I was on sabbatical. So every July I go on my break, and my phone was a brick, so I didn't have any data, no metrics, I didn't know how the pot was doing.
00:21:11 Speaker_02
All I know is the most intense spiritual warfare that I've ever had happened while I was on that sabbatical.
00:21:17 Speaker_00
Really?
00:21:17 Speaker_02
Yeah, yeah.
00:21:18 Speaker_00
What did that look like?
00:21:21 Speaker_02
deep insecurity, deep sense of fear, and a deep sense of self-consciousness. Now, I have struggles, Kerry. Those three I just named you, those ain't it. Wow.
00:21:36 Speaker_00
So that was new.
00:21:39 Speaker_02
I was so pissed. I was so incensed. I was so disoriented. I'm like, what is happening? I have not... In all my years of ministry, I haven't felt this. I haven't felt this attacked and this bad. And I'm like, I'm in Turks and Caicos.
00:21:58 Speaker_02
I can see to the bottom of the ocean. Why am I feeling this, right? It lasts for three and a half weeks before it subsides. I'm praying. I'm praying in the spirit. I'm listening to worship music. I'm reading my Bible.
00:22:12 Speaker_02
It takes three and a half weeks before it breaks.
00:22:14 Speaker_00
Was it more a fear of leaving ministry or more a fear of going all in on podcasting?
00:22:19 Speaker_02
It was the fear of the five episodes we taped. Really? It was like, you're about to get canceled. When you come back, you're not gonna have a church. Nobody's gonna like you. You said too much on the pod. You shouldn't have said it the way you said it.
00:22:31 Speaker_02
Like, I was, I mean, it was, it was like somebody, it was like somebody had their hand on my throat. It's like I couldn't breathe.
00:22:39 Speaker_00
Sounds like the accuser.
00:22:40 Speaker_02
It was, right?
00:22:42 Speaker_00
Uh-huh.
00:22:42 Speaker_02
So I get back. First week of August, I get back. I get with my team. They're like, hey, welcome back from your sabbatical. How much data do you want? I said, I want all the data. And I said, numbers equal names and names equal souls. So tell me everything.
00:22:58 Speaker_02
So Hector pulls, he keys in some things. He flips his laptop around. He goes, we have 25,000 subscribers in three and a half weeks.
00:23:10 Speaker_02
You're fully monetized, you already met the threshold, it's over 4,000 watched hours, and you're already being monetized. On YouTube. On YouTube. I started weeping.
00:23:22 Speaker_02
So uncontrollably, the tears went through my beard and dripped into the omelet I was eating. It was this, and again, I'm a context guy. I need, Jesus is king, context is queen in my world, right? So I need context. As long as I have context, I'm good.
00:23:42 Speaker_02
Once I heard those numbers, it gave me context to the warfare. And after I finished crying, I was like, oh buddy, it's a wrap. You are scared of this.
00:23:57 Speaker_00
You're scared of this. So, you know, gosh, so many questions. When there's five million podcasts, you're saying, okay, I could get canceled for this. We're having authentic conversations. We're doing it online the way I do it offline. That's right.
00:24:11 Speaker_00
From the hood.
00:24:11 Speaker_01
Yeah.
00:24:12 Speaker_00
So for those who haven't heard the basement, what makes it different?
00:24:18 Speaker_02
We lead with vulnerability. I create space for people to give the gift of their vulnerability. And I go first.
00:24:28 Speaker_00
You and I just did a two hour plus episode.
00:24:31 Speaker_02
Yeah.
00:24:32 Speaker_00
For your show.
00:24:32 Speaker_02
Yes, sir.
00:24:33 Speaker_00
And I couldn't believe how the time flew.
00:24:37 Speaker_01
Yes, sir.
00:24:37 Speaker_00
It just disappeared.
00:24:39 Speaker_01
Yeah.
00:24:40 Speaker_00
I looked at my watch. It's been two hours. How did that happen? Yeah. And that is a gift. I told you you have a gift. Thank you. Because the time flew. And normally I'm like, yeah, let's wrap this up. Like, don't ask another question. Wrap this up.
00:24:56 Speaker_00
I was not born in the hood, as you may have noticed, Tim. I don't know whether you noticed that or not. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:25:03 Speaker_02
But that's so good for cross-pollinization.
00:25:05 Speaker_00
Yeah, yeah.
00:25:05 Speaker_02
That's what I love. Like, we don't have to... Okay, so the Christian faith is the greatest fraternity and sorority in the entire world. Yes. Right? Yeah. Like, you can be born in Canada, right? With Dutch lineage. Yes. Right? With immigrant parents.
00:25:26 Speaker_02
And I can be born in the hood, right? On my mommy's side, I'm three generations removed from slavery.
00:25:34 Speaker_00
Whoa. Three. Three. Three. That's close. That's living memory.
00:25:39 Speaker_02
Super close. Right? Yeah. You're two generations away from the Second World War, right?
00:25:46 Speaker_02
And we can be on this couch as brothers in Jesus Christ, from what seems to be astronomical opposite ends of the spectrum, and we can be talking about leadership, we can be talking about Jesus, we can be talking about life.
00:26:07 Speaker_02
It's the greatest fraternity in the world. Here's one of the things that I processed in the last two years. I can't believe I code-switched so much.
00:26:24 Speaker_00
Oh, yeah. I've had some conversations with black friends about code-switching. Let's talk about that. For those who don't know, what's the thumbnail definition of code-switching?
00:26:35 Speaker_02
Yeah, so the nutshell is that I show up and I assimilate to an environment that is comfortable for white people. You censor yourself. I censor myself.
00:26:54 Speaker_00
You become someone you are not.
00:26:55 Speaker_02
I become someone less. I don't want to say, because that would mean duplicity. I don't become somebody and I'm not. I become someone less than who I fully am because I want you to feel comfortable. Got it.
00:27:12 Speaker_02
And I can't believe I robbed all them people from having the opportunity to choose if they really wanted to like me. Wow. That's what's made the last two years so difficult, is I should have just been me this whole time. So no more code switching.
00:27:29 Speaker_02
I don't code switch.
00:27:30 Speaker_00
Did you feel that pressure as a pastor?
00:27:33 Speaker_02
No, I didn't. No, because I pastored a multicultural church, and I didn't have to do it there. But when I was at Gateway, I sure did. And when I was at Potter's House, I sure did.
00:27:43 Speaker_02
And now people would think, well, you were at Potter's House, a predominantly black church. You were code switching. I absolutely was. How does that happen? Because I wasn't as churched as them.
00:27:54 Speaker_02
Okay, I grew up in LA so you had to clean up a little yeah, you know and then you learn the church jargon and the isms and the stuff and Yeah, so I really wasn't me until I probably the fifth year of our church. I wasn't fully me into the fifth year.
00:28:15 Speaker_02
And that was only leaving you two left while you led it. That's right. You led it for seven. When I finally got to me, within two years, the Lord was like, wrap it up.
00:28:25 Speaker_02
And then he says, now sit on your couch and be the you that's been most effective with everyone you've discipled.
00:28:33 Speaker_00
Interesting. Hey, I don't want to do any cultural appropriation here, but I wonder, and just riff with me on this one, whether pastors feel something similar in that I can't be fully myself if I have a microphone.
00:28:49 Speaker_02
Yeah, of course you can. So let me add this caveat. And I think this is the reason why the Lord was masterful in like telling me leave the church before he told me do the podcast. Because I didn't leave the church for the podcast.
00:29:04 Speaker_00
Right. Right? It was like, your season's over, by the way, do the podcast.
00:29:08 Speaker_02
Yeah, yeah. And he told me that like nine months later. So it wasn't close to each other, right? There's a time gap. But I think what was,
00:29:17 Speaker_02
in his genius and his mastery, for me, that's not for everybody, but for me, it was gonna be too much of a tension to hold, being as vulnerable as I am on this couch, and then still getting up to preach.
00:29:33 Speaker_02
Because preaching is very much state of the union to the body of Christ. So you can't be yourself. Right, like Obama's from the south side of Chicago. If anybody thinks that Obama doesn't say nigger, you are sadly mistaken.
00:29:53 Speaker_02
He is from the south side of Chicago, okay? Michelle Obama is black, okay? Go listen, go pull up Obama's last eight playlists that he gave at the end of his presidency or whatever. Kendrick Lamar is in that playlist.
00:30:09 Speaker_02
If you don't think this is in his vernacular, you are sadly mistaken. But he could never talk like that as the president of these United States. Because he wasn't the president of black people. He was the president of these United States of America.
00:30:25 Speaker_02
All peoples had to be represented, right? And so to my fellow Americans, Right, he's a version of himself. He's a version of himself. And in that space, you need to be. Because of who you're representing.
00:30:42 Speaker_02
On my couch, you're not gonna make me be no pastor. That ain't happening.
00:30:47 Speaker_00
And now, a quick word from one of our partners. Today's episode is brought to you by Preaching Cheat Sheet. A recent study showed that 46% of pastors say one of their biggest struggles is feeling like attendees don't absorb or use what they preach.
00:31:02 Speaker_00
Did you hear that? 46% of pastors feel that way. Look, I get it, okay? We've all been there, but if you feel this way more often than not, I would love to help.
00:31:12 Speaker_00
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00:31:25 Speaker_00
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00:31:38 Speaker_00
It's something I still use to this day, even after decades of preaching. I love filling out each of the steps as I write my sermon, and then I sit down to review the message the night before, and I can go in with
00:31:49 Speaker_00
reasonable confidence that this message is going to land, or at least that I have done my best. So I'd love to get a copy for you for free. If you want to be more confident on Sunday mornings, visit preachingcheatsheet.com.
00:32:02 Speaker_00
That's preachingcheatsheet.com to download your copy for free. And now, back to the conversation. This is great. I followed your rules for this interview. Yes, sir. Which is like, I normally send questions, do all this research. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:32:17 Speaker_00
And you're like, yeah, we don't do that on the basement. And I'm like, all right. And it worked spectacularly well. And I'm like, all right, I'm not going to prepare for this one either. We're just going to talk. Yeah, for sure.
00:32:26 Speaker_00
I'm going to go in with like minimal baseline knowledge. Yeah. So this has been a lot of fun so far. Sweet. I would love to know. Huh.
00:32:36 Speaker_00
Because you and I were talking at length on your show about, you know, why do we keep creating churches that eat up and spit out leaders? And I talked with you about, from the time I started, because I never wanted to be a pastor.
00:32:52 Speaker_00
It wasn't on my list. As a Christian, grew up in church, never wanted to be a pastor. And, you know, I started in a denominational context where people wore robes, where you were the reverend, or the reverend doctor, or the very reverend, or whatever.
00:33:04 Speaker_00
And I'm like, whoa, just carry. And I worked very hard to keep it flat.
00:33:09 Speaker_02
I did the same thing with our church.
00:33:11 Speaker_00
You did the same thing with your church.
00:33:12 Speaker_02
Nobody called us pastor.
00:33:13 Speaker_00
Nobody called you pastor. And then switched. Tim and Juliet. So then, Tim, I switched to a more evangelical world, where you do get called pastor, Pastor Cary, Pastor Karen. I was mentored by Andy Stanley. He's like, just Andy.
00:33:29 Speaker_00
I'm like, I'm gonna keep it just Cary. And part of that was a signal to my church that I don't have special powers.
00:33:36 Speaker_00
And, you know, one of the favorite things I hear about people trying not to be addicted to the praise of people, but I love it when I do an event like we did in Dallas, three-day event, Art of Leadership Live.
00:33:47 Speaker_00
And people who meet me for the first time is like, oh, you're exactly the same off mic as you are on mic, right? There's no pretense. Heard you speak at a conference. It's exactly what you see is what you get. That's right.
00:33:59 Speaker_00
Whizzy wig, whatever the coders call it. And I wonder when that isn't the case, Does that put pressure on you that can lead to collapse or to that disconnect or to inauthenticity? That doesn't necessarily mean you killed your marriage. Right, for sure.
00:34:16 Speaker_00
Doesn't necessarily mean, you know, you're in some mental asylum. Yeah, for sure. Absolutely, yeah. But like any kind of gap between your private walk and your private talk. That creates a cognitive dissonance. Absolutely. That's hard.
00:34:29 Speaker_00
I'd love for you to talk about that.
00:34:31 Speaker_02
Yeah, so I am enamored and obsessed with being congruent. Yep. Me too. Integrity means something to me. That's what my daddy taught me, right? And character means something to me. And to be congruent is essential, right? Yeah.
00:34:54 Speaker_02
Church, I'll say it a different way, pastors and politicians are the only two vocations, callings, jobs, careers, that are synonymous with morality. I never thought of that. There are no other vocations. You can't name me another vocation.
00:35:15 Speaker_00
We'd be like, whoa, throw doctors in there too. Yeah, no, no, no. If the doctor's doing something on the side, it's like, just make me better. Nope, pastors and politicians. Lawyers, nobody expects it.
00:35:24 Speaker_02
Right, exactly, right? So pastors and politicians, and pastors are above politicians, right? And so when you have that conflation, now you become the symbol of morality.
00:35:39 Speaker_02
Well, where does your humanity have any expression if you are synonymous with morality? Therefore, if you think a thought, you already think, I'm not even worthy of this vocation. Let alone articulate the thought.
00:35:59 Speaker_02
So let me tell you how this was playing out for me when I was a young adult pastor. So I became a young adult pastor when I was 30 and did it for four years. In four years, there were three young ladies that I was attracted to. In four years, okay?
00:36:16 Speaker_02
Attraction is not something you plan. Attraction is not a sin. I didn't wake up in the morning going, can't wait to see somebody as gorgeous as Juliet today. Right? And you're married. And I'm married, right?
00:36:26 Speaker_02
And so these were counseling sessions because I'm the young adult pastor and you get a name and you meet with somebody. I have no clue who this person is. We had 750 young adults. So I don't know. So she comes into my office. She's gorgeous.
00:36:44 Speaker_02
God bless her parents. Right? This collaboration was awesome. And I notice in my body, this is an attraction. Attraction's not a sin. From Genesis to Revelation, you won't find anything about attraction. Our reactions to our attraction can become a sin.
00:37:04 Speaker_02
I'm a professional. I have my meeting with her. She leaves. I call my admin in and I said, hey, you need to sign this individual to another pastor for her next counseling session. I can't meet with her again. Pastor, is anything wrong? What happened?
00:37:22 Speaker_02
Nothing. I'm attracted to her. And you were that honest. Yeah. And I don't, um, it's, it's malpractice to be looking forward to a counseling session with a congregant. That's malpractice. And so I don't need to know anything else more about her.
00:37:41 Speaker_02
Let's move on. I've literally seen enough. And so, and, and so the first time I said it to my admin, they said, I've never heard a pastor ever say what you just said to me. I can't believe you even told me that. I'm like, well, what's the other option?
00:37:59 Speaker_02
To keep it to myself, play myself into thinking I can handle this. I'll save her. And then start being a little more flirtatious or dressing up a little nicer. Where does this lead? It can't lead to anything good. So we're just going to cut it off now.
00:38:18 Speaker_02
She's done nothing wrong. There's nothing wrong with her. She doesn't even know. And I'm not bringing it to her attention. It's not her. It's not her issue. It's mine. I gotta go deal with this. So I was practicing this level of vulnerability when I was 30.
00:38:37 Speaker_02
How did you know that at 30?
00:38:40 Speaker_02
Because I had messed up all my 20s Yeah, yeah, so so quick recap I was sexually abused when I was 8 years old by a teenage boy that lived across the street from me for a period of time and Obviously sexualized at a young age traumatized and did not
00:39:04 Speaker_02
I couldn't not tell my parents because I didn't want my life to blow up. My eight-year-old thought after the first time I was abused, Carrie was, I can't tell my dad because he'll kill him.
00:39:15 Speaker_02
My older brother will bury the body and my mom will be brokenhearted and we're going to wind up living with some of our relatives. That's worse than the life we have now or it's going to be the foster system. So I made a decision at eight.
00:39:31 Speaker_02
That's a lot for an eight. I made a decision at eight to like, I got to keep this. I can't let this out. So I took it on me. And there's nothing, I wasn't prepared to hold that.
00:39:50 Speaker_02
And so four years go by, I'm exposed to pornography at 12, and it becomes, it's my alcohol, it's my cocaine, it's my, it could have been anything, it happened to be porn. So porn and masturbation became how I coped with life, right?
00:40:06 Speaker_02
Any type of stress, any type of trauma, flare up anything. So my mom catches me at 19 watching porn. And that night, I confessed to her that, because I knew that porn was the fruit, it wasn't the root.
00:40:23 Speaker_02
So at 19, eight-year-old Timmy in my 19-year-old body gets to tell his mommy that he got hurt. And then we wake, it's like two o'clock in the morning, we wake my younger brother up, he was abused by the same guy.
00:40:36 Speaker_02
My mom was abused when she was six, harassed by her babysitter sexually. And then my father, he was working nights, but he came home, so probably 4.30 in the morning now.
00:40:48 Speaker_02
My father says that when he was five, he was sexually abused by the owner of a comic book store. So in one night, Carrie, what should have been shame and a lot of guilt and condemnation all the lights came on.
00:41:04 Speaker_02
And it was like a 2,000 pound slab of concrete came off my chest. And I can breathe again. I can take a deep breath. And I knew what I felt. I didn't know how to quantify it or categorize it.
00:41:21 Speaker_02
All I remember saying to myself, not out loud, was, I will never hold a secret again as long as I live. It was just like, somebody gonna know. I might not be able to tell the world, but I will never have a secret again as long as I live. I was 19.
00:41:38 Speaker_02
A year later, I gave my life to Jesus.
00:41:40 Speaker_00
Man, oh, so you weren't even a Christian. I wasn't a believer. Wow.
00:41:43 Speaker_02
No, I gave my life to Jesus a year later, and I was essentially a born-again porn addict. That thing didn't come off me right away. My brain had been rewired. I had a whole bunch of stuff to start tackling through.
00:41:58 Speaker_02
I'm married within two years of that, so I bring a porn addiction into my marriage. And I'm trying to hide it because I want to spare her, but I'm not being vulnerable. Then she finds out and I'm going through this dumb, toxic cycle.
00:42:12 Speaker_02
And then after my first After my first two years of salvation, I realized altercars weren't enough. So I just started to like, do my work. And it was a long arduous road throughout my 20s into my 30s.
00:42:30 Speaker_02
But once I got into my 30s, I had figured out like, oh, the only way that you're going to stay free is keep your mouth open. And you better have somebody you can tell everything to because if you can't,
00:42:41 Speaker_02
Whatever doesn't come up and out of your mouth through words are going to come up and out of your body through actions. That'll preach. Yeah. So if you don't verbally telling yourself, your body's going to, in action, telling yourself.
00:42:58 Speaker_00
When you think about what you're doing on The Basement, and you have some long episodes, I think longest record is four. Four hours, six minutes. You're out Rogan-ing Rogan. Okay. So good for you.
00:43:10 Speaker_05
Good for you.
00:43:11 Speaker_00
You're out Rogan-ing Rogan. It's the only way I'm beating him. Aren't we all in that place? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But when you think about the level of authenticity,
00:43:21 Speaker_00
that you've got on the podcast versus the authenticity you felt or gave yourself permission to have when you were pastoring. Talk about the size of the gap. Big enough?
00:43:38 Speaker_02
Like that much? Meaningful. Yeah, meaningful enough that, hey, there's a wide range of people in here. Yeah. I got saved on the back row of my parents' church that was in a banker room of a bowling alley.
00:44:00 Speaker_02
There's 47 people in attendance that day, I'm sure of it, right? And so I still preach from the back row forward. The first four or five rows are already saved. You know what I mean? Hey, gang, I'm in my series.
00:44:14 Speaker_02
Open up your Bibles to the book of Exodus chapter number three. First five rows, he's in Moses. He's talking about Moses, Bernie Bush. Let's see if he knows what he's talking about. First five rows already know your message, right?
00:44:25 Speaker_00
They know. They know.
00:44:26 Speaker_02
Wonder what angle you're in. Yeah, yeah. They're there for quality assurance. Let's just make sure this guy's theologically correct, right? The guy or the girl on the back row, Kerry, they're on Instagram. They don't care what's going on here.
00:44:41 Speaker_02
They're waiting for it to be over. I want their attention. Y'all are already safe. So that's always been my mentality, is first five rows are already safe. I'm going for the person in the back and I'm working my way forward, right?
00:44:53 Speaker_02
Throughout the message, I'll prove to the people by the time I'm done that I was in this book and I'm hermeneutically correct and homiletically correct and all that kind of stuff, right?
00:45:01 Speaker_02
But I'm starting from the back row and I'm working my way forward. But I was just diplomatic enough in an embassy as an ambassador that I was given a State of the Union to the body of Christ.
00:45:17 Speaker_02
And I wanted to make sure that citizens of our country felt like they heard a message that was from the kingdom of God.
00:45:25 Speaker_02
that visitors to our country knew that they were welcome here, and that those seeking asylum knew that they could stay here if they wanted to. Because I believe every church is an embassy.
00:45:37 Speaker_00
It is interesting, you know, because when I'm running this through my filter, and I've had this conversation with myself more than once, but I don't think we've had it here,
00:45:46 Speaker_00
I feel like permission to talk about things, even on a leadership podcast, you're just like, life, let's just talk, whatever's there. But even on a leadership podcast, because I tend to run everything through the lens of leadership.
00:45:58 Speaker_00
I don't want to help leaders. I feel a much greater sense of permission in what I can say and how I can say it than I do or did as a preacher. And I feel more freedom. I've never thought about this. Now I'm taking this further.
00:46:14 Speaker_00
I feel more freedom in my keynotes. Like when I'm talking to leaders at a conference, church leaders or business leaders, I feel more freedom in my keynotes than I do in my preaching, which is maybe why I'm not preaching right now.
00:46:28 Speaker_00
I don't know, that's really... I, you know, welcome to therapy.
00:46:33 Speaker_02
And I don't know that that's good. Well, here's the thing. The sermon... I believe in the sacred desk.
00:46:41 Speaker_00
You're representing. I am representing. It's the word of God, not the word of Carrie. Right, you know what I mean? If this show dies, it's not the end of the world. It's not the end of the world. It's fine. Right, right, right. The gospel's gonna go on.
00:46:52 Speaker_00
If the gospel gets in trouble, I think that's pretty serious.
00:46:55 Speaker_02
Yeah, so the gospel, there is a compelling way The gospel message is a one-size-fits-all. My story is not one-size-fits-all. Your story is not one-size-fits-all. The gospel is.
00:47:09 Speaker_02
So in preaching the gospel, there is an approach and a respect and a reverence I have to that, right? But when we come home, and we plopped down on the couch. I don't talk with the same structure and the same cadence that I do in a sermon.
00:47:32 Speaker_02
We're sermonizing. Even the most laid back of us, right, that don't even wanna call what we do preaching and teaching, right? Like, hey, my talk today. You're still structuring it. You're not at the house going, hey, here's point one, honey, to my day.
00:47:48 Speaker_02
Point one, I got fed. Point two, I overcame fear. Point three, I'm going far.
00:47:57 Speaker_00
You're not alliterating with your wife and pillow talk. It's not structured. It's not structured.
00:48:03 Speaker_02
So the Lord was very, very clear to me that, A, the way you've always talked in private, that's the way I want you to talk in public. And that's the cadence that I... And the podcast is the forum for that.
00:48:18 Speaker_00
It is. It is the forum for that.
00:48:20 Speaker_02
It is the forum for that.
00:48:21 Speaker_00
Now, when I asked you about your audience before we hit record for your show, you told me you had a lot of people who have deconstructed, maybe a few deconverted, de-churched, but also church people, and you see it as discipleship. Absolutely.
00:48:34 Speaker_00
It is, yeah. I'm thinking about this from the perspective of a podcast that might be able to disciple people that have given up on church. Do you think about your show through that lens? No, that's exactly what we do. That's what you do.
00:48:49 Speaker_02
Yeah, that's exactly what we do. So let's talk about that. So one of the things I became aware of, probably month six or seven of the pod, I thought to myself, or the Holy Spirit brought the thought, because I'm not that smart, so I just,
00:49:07 Speaker_02
This thought came to me and I said, I think we're a safety net for deconstructionists. Okay. That way they don't just fall off the building and crack into a million pieces. We're their safety net.
00:49:23 Speaker_00
Because you're so authentic. I remember the first time, I think it was Brad Lominick I was telling you, told me about you and your show, and I'm like, he's like, this guy's blowing up, you gotta go look at the basement, listen to the basement.
00:49:33 Speaker_00
So I listened, I didn't view. I was washing my car, and my first impression is, oh, Tim's deconstructed. Now, I'm not saying that as an insult, but it was so raw, and so... Honest. Yeah, I thought oh, I wonder if this is a guy who's walking away. Yeah.
00:49:51 Speaker_00
Yeah. Yeah, I listened longer and to more episodes I'm like, oh no, he's not doing that. Yeah, he's as orthodox as anybody. I appreciate you listening longer.
00:50:00 Speaker_02
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Because most people just take a 90 second clip and they're like, he hates the local church and he's a deconstructionist and I'm like...
00:50:13 Speaker_00
Yeah, and that would have got me a lot of views and a lot of headlines on a five-minute sample. Right, right, right, exactly.
00:50:20 Speaker_00
No, but like you go deep, and you're so authentic, and you're so vulnerable, and it sounds like the things deconstructionists say, but it's in the view of reconstruction.
00:50:31 Speaker_00
I'm thinking about that, like, for pastors, you know, not that you need more work, but why can't your church have a ministry like that? You know what I'm saying? Or why can't your preaching feel more like that?
00:50:46 Speaker_02
I think it's important because after I kind of like really heard from deconstructionists, I thought to myself, oh, this ain't all bad. No. Deconstruction is actually very, very important. I'm not for destruction.
00:51:05 Speaker_02
My thing is like, okay, deconstruct if you will, but you better also be going to Lowe's and Home Depot for reconstruction. Because destruction without reconstruction is destruction.
00:51:18 Speaker_03
Yes, it is.
00:51:19 Speaker_02
And I am not for the destruction of the church. I am for, you know what, we never needed this wing. This ring of religiosity and self-righteousness Let's tear that down, deconstruct that, right? But let's build something better.
00:51:35 Speaker_02
So if you just let people talk, they'll let you know where they are. But if you interrupt them, again, I know the second thing isn't a word, but it rhymes. There's curiosity and there's furiosity. When you get triggered, you have two options.
00:51:58 Speaker_02
One is curiosity. When I get triggered, I become curious at what that did externally.
00:52:10 Speaker_02
vibrated something internally within me, what reverberated in me as a result And I become curious, I go inward to go find out what about this bothers me so Because it had nothing to do with you, I can't change you, I can't stop you So what is it about you that causes this?
00:52:29 Speaker_02
Curiosity leads you inward, furiosity leads you outward
00:52:34 Speaker_05
Mm-hmm.
00:52:34 Speaker_02
So I'm triggered you're you're the one that triggered me. So The most convenient because I'm too afraid to go inward. I just cancel you Right, right the most convenient things that I can have happen is you stop talking your questions threaten me
00:52:52 Speaker_02
That's exactly right. So my questions threaten people. My cadence threatens people. My conversations threaten people. My language threatens people. My liberty to not code switch anymore threatens people. It makes them uncomfortable.
00:53:07 Speaker_02
But instead of getting curious, they get furious.
00:53:11 Speaker_00
I don't notice a big difference in you, and this could just be me, in the way you're talking and showing up on my show than you did on your show. Have you stopped code switching now when you're a guest elsewhere?
00:53:24 Speaker_02
Not at all. Like, I'm not holding back in any way.
00:53:28 Speaker_00
You're not holding back. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:53:30 Speaker_02
Awesome. I'm a very passionate person. I'm an empath, as you know. And so if we get on certain topics that I'm really, really passionate about, or we talk about certain things, I'm at, I feel liberty to
00:53:47 Speaker_02
express myself Emotionally as I'm feeling it in the moment based on the context of the conversation that we're having right So that's less and less of an issue for you all the time Yeah, and and I'm never trying to force that or like I never feel like I gotta prove I'm not a code switcher and so I gotta say some stuff.
00:54:07 Speaker_02
No if it come if it comes it comes but it's not like a I'm on a crusade to, I don't know, piss people off. It's just not, it never comes to my mind.
00:54:19 Speaker_00
I'm really not trying to, I'm not thinking about nobody except the person I'm talking to.
00:54:23 Speaker_00
So this is interesting too, you know, you think about the growth of your podcast, The Basement, and I was listening to Carl Lentz and Laura Lentz on Lights On, and I hear about this B-side, B-side, and then literally a month before I flew here, I'm like,
00:54:38 Speaker_00
Wait, I think that's Tim's company. Yeah, it is. It is, the B-side. So you're like building stuff out and connecting with creators.
00:54:47 Speaker_01
Yeah.
00:54:47 Speaker_00
Talk a little bit about the development of the B-side, what it is. Is it a podcast network? Is it an app? Like, it is. Yeah, it's all of that. But say more, say more.
00:54:56 Speaker_02
Yeah, so I'm driving to Tulsa, Oklahoma one day. Yeah. And it's a four-hour drive.
00:55:00 Speaker_00
Going to see Mike or Carl?
00:55:01 Speaker_02
Yeah, going to see Mike. Mike Todd. And so I'm driving up there and because I'm an introvert, a four-hour drive is heavenly. Right? I'm like, I'm by myself. I'm driving. I have a Tesla. So the Tesla's driving. I'm not even driving.
00:55:16 Speaker_02
And I'm just sitting there hands-free and out of nowhere, unsolicited, no prior thought, the Holy Spirit's like, I need you to develop an app. And I was like, who are you talking to? You cannot be talking to me.
00:55:30 Speaker_02
He's like, no, yeah, I need you to develop an app. And I'm like, About what? And he goes, go look at the Daily Wire. And I was like, okay. So I pull up the Daily Wire while I'm driving, right? And the car is like, pay attention. I'm like, I am, kind of.
00:55:50 Speaker_02
I pull up Daily Wire. And I just scrolled through it and it wasn't like I started listening to any content.
00:55:58 Speaker_02
I just started scrolling through it and he was like, I need you to gather voices of vulnerability in the same way Daily Wire has gathered voices that feel inclined to... I don't know what Daily Wire does.
00:56:14 Speaker_00
I don't know. I've read a few articles.
00:56:15 Speaker_02
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But the point was... Jordan Peterson, Ben Shapiro, Candace Owens was there at the time. She's no longer there, and some other guys. Who else? Matt Walsh, all these people, right?
00:56:30 Speaker_02
And so he goes, I need you to, that's what I want you to do. And just go get voices that have the same thinking wavelength as you around vulnerability. And I was like, okay.
00:56:44 Speaker_02
So I came back and talked to a friend of mine who was sponsoring my podcast at the time. And He goes, Hey man, I've been praying and man, I don't, I just feel like, I don't know.
00:57:02 Speaker_02
I just feel like I need to be doing something, uh, with you, but like maybe more like the daily wire. And I was like, I, I need you to, you need to shut up.
00:57:12 Speaker_00
Yeah. Like the odds of all, and it's not even a major outlet, the daily wire for that to come up. Come on.
00:57:20 Speaker_02
I said, sir, what made you say that? And then he goes, I don't know what I'm thinking. I'm just thinking like something needs to happen. And Carrie, I go to open my mouth to respond to him.
00:57:33 Speaker_02
And this is no lie, right hand to the Lord, both hands, both feet. I opened my mouth and everything that came out of my mouth that he heard was the first time I heard it. I was like, oh yeah, here's how the company's gonna be structured.
00:57:51 Speaker_02
We're gonna do this, this, and this, and we're gonna structure it like this, and we're gonna get subscribers to come over here, and I'm gonna move everything from YouTube over to this platform.
00:57:59 Speaker_02
That way we don't have to fight with YouTube's algorithm and them demonetizing or downright shutting down monetization to some of our apps. Because I said the word transgender on one of our episodes. I just said the word.
00:58:13 Speaker_02
I didn't, I wasn't talking about a person or an issue or whatever. I was just talking about whatever I was talking about, and I said the word transgender as part of what I was talking about. And we got demonetized. Interesting.
00:58:28 Speaker_02
I'm like, there's whole YouTube channels for transgender. Yeah, yeah. How do you even distinguish? How does your algorithm know I love Jesus?
00:58:41 Speaker_00
Did you try to appeal it? We had that very similarly.
00:58:45 Speaker_01
Yeah.
00:58:45 Speaker_00
Where we were getting ready and I got a call. I was on vacation. Yeah. Taking a month off. Yeah. And rarely get a phone call. Yeah. And it was my digital media director.
00:58:56 Speaker_00
And it was an old interview that the algorithm found that we don't even know what it was because it was pretty… I'm not going to say who it was because it wasn't the guest's fault.
00:59:06 Speaker_01
Yeah, for sure.
00:59:07 Speaker_00
And it was just some word that got flagged by an algorithm. And I'm like, It was like, hey, there's, you know, in, I forget what their term was, but intolerant or whatever. I'm like, no, no, no. This was about tolerance.
00:59:19 Speaker_00
This was, we were doing the opposite of what you said we were doing. Right, right, right, right. And the purpose was the opposite. You need to listen to this. And so we went to town on that.
00:59:30 Speaker_01
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:59:31 Speaker_00
And it was like, eh. So that warning stayed up for 90 days. I think it's gone now. Yeah, for sure. That's crazy, because there are channels that are devoted to division. Absolutely.
00:59:42 Speaker_02
And they never get flagged. They never get flagged.
00:59:44 Speaker_00
And they get to run up the score. They got more subs than both of us combined. Exactly. And I'm like, guys, we're the opposite of what you said you were, and there's no appeal process. There's just some algorithm. Exactly. And so I hear that. Yeah. Okay.
00:59:56 Speaker_00
So basically, this is how we're going to do it. We're going to insulate ourselves from being penalized.
01:00:01 Speaker_02
Absolutely, and we'll put it behind our own paywall, and it'll be subscription-based for people to support our channel. They were supporting us on YouTube anyway. And so we have, as of yesterday, 57,000 downloads of this app.
01:00:19 Speaker_02
with around 8,100 subscribers.
01:00:23 Speaker_00
That's amazing.
01:00:24 Speaker_02
Yeah, yeah. So it's about a 14% something, 4.7% conversion rate or something like this. But our app is not a entertainment app. It's not YouVersion. So how do you have 57,000 downloads and only 8,000 subscribers?
01:00:44 Speaker_02
Because for a person to start subscribing means that they're ready to do their work.
01:00:47 Speaker_00
Yeah, yeah. And you got to be like in-app purchase, right? Like, ding! You got to go in there.
01:00:53 Speaker_02
Yeah, you got to go in there. And it's $10 a month or $120 a year. That's not a lot. It's not a lot. But, you know, the people that have subscribed, They're working on themselves from the inside.
01:01:08 Speaker_02
Like, bro, we got, we got, I, listen, when the Lord tells me to do something, Kerry, I'm the type of person that I just do it. I don't, because obedience is better than sacrifice.
01:01:19 Speaker_02
I don't need the confirmations, but when they come, they're just sweet kisses from the Lord. Yeah, I'm not saying no. Yeah, I'm not saying no. If someone's saying good job, I'm not like, get away from me.
01:01:30 Speaker_02
So 2003, here's my big hug from the Lord in terms of the effectiveness of what we do in the midst of all the controversy and whatever people think and say. So I'm at a church. I won't name the church. I'm at a church. I'm doing the Q&A. Q&A is awesome.
01:01:52 Speaker_02
And when we get done, they have like a little meet and greet for me. So people are coming through the meet and greet line, and there's this young lady there that's waiting to talk to me.
01:02:02 Speaker_02
Beautiful, no makeup, pretty face, and she's like, hey, thank you so much for your pod, you have no idea how much it's helped me. I'm like, okay, thank you, I appreciate you. Then she says, real quick, I need you to say hi to somebody for me.
01:02:21 Speaker_02
So she picks up her phone, she hits FaceTime, and hands me the phone. As soon as the person answers, they see my face.
01:02:33 Speaker_01
And they're like, oh my God.
01:02:35 Speaker_02
She has on nursing scrubs. And she's like, oh my God, thank you so much. She starts crying.
01:02:40 Speaker_01
Thank you so much.
01:02:41 Speaker_02
You have no idea. Your content has just blessed us. It's been so amazing. I'm like, thank you. And I love you. And so I hang up the phone, give it back to her. She goes, thank you so much. I really appreciate you saying hi to her. That's my wife.
01:02:55 Speaker_02
I said, oh, okay. And she goes, and we're getting a divorce. And she said, it's because your podcast. She starts naming the episodes. She was like episode, let's just say 22.
01:03:06 Speaker_02
The Holy Spirit started convicting me as I was listening to you about my same sex marriage to my wife. And then episode 37, none of those episodes we're talking about. homosexuality, gay marriage, or anything.
01:03:22 Speaker_00
It's like the sermon. It's like when you said, and I'm like, I never said that. Right, right. You know what I mean?
01:03:27 Speaker_02
And so then, then she's just like, um, I just, uh, then I brought my wife in and we started sitting on the edge of the bed, listening to more of the content. And then the Holy Spirit started convicting us.
01:03:40 Speaker_02
And then we realized that our marriage didn't please God. And We're uncoupling and we still love each other, but we want to honor God. And so thank you for teaching what you teach and talking the way you talk because it really resonates with us.
01:04:01 Speaker_02
Wow, wow. And we get stuff like that all the time. But we also, our platform is also safe enough that we could be in a live chat and somebody, this happened a few months ago, I just love the safety that we've curated.
01:04:15 Speaker_02
We're in a live chat and somebody writes, hey, I really need prayer because I'm believing God for a spouse, but I don't think anybody wants to marry me because I have herpes.
01:04:29 Speaker_00
That's honest.
01:04:29 Speaker_02
within 90 seconds, no lie, right? Within 90 seconds, there's nine other people rallying around in the live chat. Girl, I got herpes too. Whoa. Whoa. I'm in the same boat as you. And now there's like a community of like, cause here's the thing.
01:04:51 Speaker_02
All of humanity walks in your church. And this presumption that by being in this church, you must've walked out of another church. Right, right, right? Like you came out of a pew into a pew as opposed to you came out of life.
01:05:10 Speaker_02
Like you were all representing life in this room. And if there's no place to process that safely without, Right? There was a guy that went viral the other day.
01:05:25 Speaker_02
Not the other day, a few months ago, this guy went viral because some guy in his church didn't say amen. They said like, F yeah. I don't know if you saw it. I think I did. And the guy was like, hey, hey, hey bro, amen, and also stop cussing.
01:05:41 Speaker_02
But the way he handled it, Are we gonna act like we ain't ever heard that word before? Right, right, right. Are we gonna act like some of us don't use that word? Cuz all of us ain't got the same convictions. You know what I'm saying?
01:05:57 Speaker_02
It's like if we as believers of Jesus can't be as real as the book we're reading. The Bible has no chill. Oh yeah. Expressing the humanity of all these men and women from Genesis to Revelation, which covers about 4,000 years of humanity.
01:06:17 Speaker_02
It's pretty rough. If you read it straight through, it's pretty rough. If you play Duck, Duck, Goose, it'll read like lilies and wildflowers, right? And then you just skip and do dandelions. And the worst thing that happened is Jesus bled.
01:06:31 Speaker_02
But if you read it from Genesis to Revelation, It can be a tough book, child. Who you telling?
01:06:39 Speaker_01
Uh-huh.
01:06:40 Speaker_02
Right? Like that thing is rough, but God is working through all of that to get us to Jesus.
01:06:49 Speaker_00
Yep. Yeah. And there is something about, you know, you've got the B-side community, which is not just, you know, get Lecrae's podcast or Carl Lentz or whatever.
01:07:00 Speaker_03
Yeah.
01:07:01 Speaker_00
But you also get, or yours, you also have a community.
01:07:04 Speaker_03
That's right.
01:07:05 Speaker_00
So we have the Art of Leadership Academy.
01:07:06 Speaker_03
Yes, sir.
01:07:07 Speaker_00
And there's something, ours isn't quite as cheap as yours is, inexpensive as yours is.
01:07:11 Speaker_03
Yeah.
01:07:12 Speaker_00
But there's something about what I think of as a qualified buyer. Somebody who's got a little bit of skin in the game. That's right. Changes the conversation a hundred percent.
01:07:23 Speaker_03
That's right.
01:07:23 Speaker_00
You know, because free is free to take cheap shots, free, that would be my, like me, you know, five minutes into the podcast going, pretty sure Tim's deconfirmed.
01:07:33 Speaker_00
I'm gonna stop the presses, stop the presses, that's my next blog article, that's my next rant on my podcast. Totally wrong, totally misinformed, no relationship, never talked to you.
01:07:45 Speaker_00
But I'm making headlines now because of something that's inaccurate. And that is what, sadly, social media and the internet have become. It has become that. And anybody's in on the conversation. So it has a role. But it's not the role.
01:08:00 Speaker_00
And what's interesting is I was nervous about creating a discussion feed. It was a last minute ad when we created the Academy back in 2022. And because we're going to put all my courses in there, which are there. We're going to do monthly coaching.
01:08:13 Speaker_00
We're going to do a live coaching call. We're going to do staff training. We did all that stuff.
01:08:18 Speaker_00
And then not quite as an afterthought, but at the 11th hour, it's like, what if we created a discussion feed where leaders could just connect with each other, you know? And I was like, yeah, let's do that. And so we did it.
01:08:31 Speaker_00
And I created community guidelines. Like, all right, we're not going to have trolls here. We're not going to beat each other up. Yeah, you're a Baptist, and this person's a Pentecostal, and this person's Episcopalian, and this person's non-denom.
01:08:43 Speaker_01
Yeah.
01:08:43 Speaker_00
Play nice. We're all going to get along. Play nice. Play nice. It was real simple. It was simpler than that. But it was just like a reminder to be civil.
01:08:50 Speaker_01
Yeah.
01:08:51 Speaker_00
Do you know how many people we've had to talk to in over two years about inappropriately handling their sister or brother in the app? Zero. That's right. Zero. Because they're bought in. Yeah, every day, even on Instagram.
01:09:06 Speaker_00
Instagram can get nasty down too. It wasn't for a long time. They are. It was Facebook. Facebook and X, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But like, there has to be a role, but there has to be a place where people feel safe.
01:09:17 Speaker_03
That's right.
01:09:18 Speaker_00
Or you look like a program like Alpha.
01:09:20 Speaker_03
That's right.
01:09:20 Speaker_00
A ministry like Alpha where people can come in and on day one go, yeah, I have herpes. Right, right. Exactly. For sure. And we need more safe spaces like that in the church. Yeah, we do.
01:09:32 Speaker_02
There was, I was talking with a friend of mine who's brilliant. She's a doctorate, has earned doctorate in just one of the most brilliant minds I've been around.
01:09:42 Speaker_00
Thank you for saying urn doctor. Call me Dr. Newhoff. Bought it online.
01:09:49 Speaker_02
Urn doctor. Erin Doctory, right? And so she goes, she goes, she goes, I'm starting to research the city of refuge in the Old Testament. And I was like, yeah, there's six of them, because I'm a nerd. I was like, there's six of them.
01:10:02 Speaker_02
There's 12 tribes of Israel, there's six, and they're all scattered around. And if somebody accidentally killed somebody before they could be murdered, they could go to a city of refuge and wait until a trial and not, you know, be killed.
01:10:16 Speaker_02
And I feel like the basement is a city of refuge.
01:10:22 Speaker_00
That's a great metaphor.
01:10:25 Speaker_02
And so, one of the roles I know we serve, Kerry, is that we are an incubator between someone's deconstruction and re-entry into the local church. Because I never tell them to stay with us.
01:10:43 Speaker_02
They all know they need to go be a part of a local church at some point. But if they need a place to like, all right, I need to get some of this off me. I need to detox some of this. Or I learned a whole bunch of bad stuff. I'm a legalist. Right?
01:11:00 Speaker_02
I'm a real religious person. I'm super judgmental. Tim, I actually hated you. I used to listen to this other person. He downed you so bad. I decided to listen to some of your content and then fell in love with you. And now I'm a dweller. It's like, thanks.
01:11:13 Speaker_02
Now I'm ready to be a part of a local church. What kind of church should I be looking for?
01:11:18 Speaker_00
And we need more churches that can handle real talk. So, here's a confession. I led a church for 20 years, stayed on as a teaching pastor, still part of that church. This is embarrassing.
01:11:31 Speaker_00
For the very first time, today years old, I thought, I bet you somebody in our church has a sexually transmitted disease. It never even occurred to me, man. 20, I didn't have a category for that. I had like soap on my brain.
01:11:46 Speaker_00
Of course that doesn't happen here.
01:11:47 Speaker_02
Of course it does. We literally think that everybody's a virgin, so they get married and doesn't have a pass. You know what I mean? And we tell, we make all these rules for the genders, right? We want appropriateness and we don't want any,
01:12:05 Speaker_02
We don't you good to be able spoken of because you know what happens if a penis gets next to a vagina You're probably gonna have sex and then it's like so there's nobody here that has the same sexual attraction right now that you've Split brothers and sisters.
01:12:17 Speaker_02
You don't think brothers and brothers can get together It's like it's 2024 people cultures tell if any of this culture Gets redeemed and comes to your church They're coming in with with the stuff that you were railing against out there.
01:12:34 Speaker_00
Yep Yeah, and that's so, that's so important, you know, if you're fighting a culture war. Yes. Right? And you're like, these people and these people and these people and blah, blah, blah.
01:12:45 Speaker_00
And then they come in and it's like, well, I guess I'm on the wrong side. Exactly. And the vulnerability it takes to raise your hand. and say, I'm attracted to that woman I was counseling. We're going to cancel this.
01:12:58 Speaker_00
Yeah, I have a sexually transmitted disease. Yeah. Or something like that. Absolutely. To raise your hand like that takes incredible vulnerability. It does. And then to create a non-judgmental community where there's empathy.
01:13:11 Speaker_00
And maybe, okay, I don't know what to do with that. Yeah. But we're really glad you're here. Yeah, like we need more church like that.
01:13:18 Speaker_02
We do our dwellers as we affectionately refer to ourselves our dwellers We had a we had a guy in the live chat on Monday who was he was like a little troll and then like 10 of the dwellers are like, hey, we love you, bud.
01:13:37 Speaker_02
And we heard you, and you're fine. But we're not. That's a good answer. We're not listening. You know what I mean? Like, hey, if you don't like 10, that's fine. You don't actually have to be here. But you can stay, but we love you.
01:13:49 Speaker_02
But also, like, it's the emotional IQ on these people. Yeah.
01:13:56 Speaker_00
Exactly. Because they have skin in the game.
01:13:59 Speaker_02
They have skin in the game.
01:14:00 Speaker_00
They have skin in the game.
01:14:01 Speaker_02
Yeah. That's fascinating. Yeah.
01:14:03 Speaker_00
Comedy.
01:14:04 Speaker_02
Yes, sir.
01:14:05 Speaker_00
Have you always done comedy?
01:14:06 Speaker_02
Always. Always.
01:14:08 Speaker_00
You're getting back into it.
01:14:09 Speaker_02
I had comedy before I had Jesus. Oh, as a teenager. As an adolescent. So after my trauma, which was so dark and so disorienting, right?
01:14:21 Speaker_01
Yeah.
01:14:21 Speaker_02
I just knew, and obviously I'm putting language to it now that I didn't have as a kid, so this was intrinsic as a little boy, but I was just like, man, what has happened, because it happened more than once, you know, but I'm in this kind of, I'm just like, this is so nasty and I don't know how to feel about it and it's all, it's wrong.
01:14:47 Speaker_02
I can't talk about it, but I also don't want to be depressed and sad. And so I'm going to laugh. And I'm going to make others laugh. And I did. And I've always been able to do.
01:15:07 Speaker_02
So when I gave my life to Jesus, my early 20s were spent preaching, rapping, and doing stand-up comedy. To the point that there would be a couple of churches a year that would have me come, they would have me for the whole weekend, literally.
01:15:22 Speaker_02
On Friday, I'd do rap for the young adults. On Saturday, I'd do comedy for the single ministry. And on Sunday, I'd preach to the congregation. And God made it very, very clear that preaching is what he wanted me to focus on.
01:15:39 Speaker_02
Because humor has always been a part of my messaging, I never felt disconnected from comedy. But I didn't know that he would bring it back to me and allow me to do it again.
01:15:51 Speaker_02
And so I'm in a season now where I get to do comedy and stand at the intersection of faith and culture and allow people that are really far from Jesus to understand my faith and then to allow people that are really close to Jesus to understand the world that we're supposed to reach.
01:16:18 Speaker_02
And to cross-pollinate it and bring levity to both through the art of comedy.
01:16:26 Speaker_00
So let's talk about the art of comedy. I'm fascinated by this. So people ask me like, what do you do these days? And sometimes if we've got longer dialogue, I'll say, I notice things. I notice church trends. I notice, oh, this thing about the church.
01:16:42 Speaker_00
Like, what if we took a look at that? Like, I notice things. And I've heard comedy defined as noticing.
01:16:47 Speaker_02
It is.
01:16:48 Speaker_00
It is.
01:16:48 Speaker_02
It is. I'll tell you how fresh this is. Yeah. This is yesterday, okay? I got a note from my... I have EMDR sessions.
01:17:01 Speaker_00
Yeah?
01:17:02 Speaker_02
Yeah. Probably once a month. Cool. once a week, depending on what I'm doing. And my therapist says, I'm processing comedy and the fact that I have it back now and the way I want to utilize it and the noticing and all that. And she goes, reducto absurdum.
01:17:25 Speaker_02
I said, ma'am, that's clearly Latin, but I don't know what that means She goes, reducto absurdum is the art of reducing it to the absurd I am directly confronting someone in an abstract and outlandish way So much so that the person being confronted laughs and subsequently applies what has been said to their lives
01:17:51 Speaker_02
She said, Tim, you do that unconsciously. You are reducto absurdum. You know how to bring things to people's attention in such a way that you can get them. Case in point.
01:18:07 Speaker_02
I was talking to a friend who loves Jesus, is a disciple of Jesus, is engaged, and does not feel any conviction around sex before marriage. And so they're like, and I don't really think fornication has anything to do with just sex before marriage.
01:18:28 Speaker_02
I think it has to do with something deeper than that and some old nuanced stuff. I'm listening to her and I'm like, and so she's like, so what are your thoughts? But kind of like, I don't care what your thoughts are.
01:18:40 Speaker_02
Like, I invite your thoughts, but I've already made up my mind. And so we were actually sharing a meal. It was three of us at a table and we were sharing a meal.
01:18:48 Speaker_02
And as soon as she finished, I said, well, if you just want to have dessert before your main course, then just say that. I said, the way I read scripture, sex is supposed to be the crescendo of a betrothal process.
01:19:06 Speaker_02
And you should have gotten to know this person you were going to marry on every other level prior to your bodies coming together. So that it really is a crescendo. It really is a climax of knowing. You get the ultimate knowledge on your wedding day.
01:19:24 Speaker_02
I said, but if you want to have your chocolate cake before you have your steak, go ahead and eat. And she literally goes, okay, thank you. For the record, I do not like having my dessert before I have my main course. And your argument is duly noted.
01:19:45 Speaker_02
And now she's not gonna have sex again until she gets married. Wow. Everything don't have to be rock and science. But it also, there is a theology there.
01:19:58 Speaker_02
There is a way I see scripture that is orthodox, and that is like, it says what it says, and I'm kind of a literalist, and so it is what it is. But the way to explain it might be different depending on who you're talking to, and so.
01:20:11 Speaker_00
You know, talking about the way we preach 30 years ago versus now, there's more pressure.
01:20:17 Speaker_00
And a lot of communicators, whether you're a keynote speaker or a boss in a meeting, or whether you're preaching on a Sunday morning, you feel the pressure to make the audience laugh. I'm not good at stage jokes.
01:20:30 Speaker_00
Yeah, it was funny I did wasn't unscripted for the last three days at our art of leadership live in Dallas But like I just had what was on the slides and the slides were my typical bullet point Yeah, but some of the moments were really funny Yeah, but it was like in the moment right right kind of like boom boom boom and I couldn't repeat it right now if I wanted to
01:20:48 Speaker_00
A couple times I tripped up on my words or whatever. So, the craft of comedy amazes me. You know, John Acuff is a good friend. He's been on the show. I've had Andrew Stanley, had John Crist, and other comedians.
01:21:00 Speaker_00
And I always would love to have Nate Borghese at some point. Brilliant at comedy. To you, what's the key to comedy? Like, when you're writing a set, when you're writing a bit, how do you know, oh, this is gonna work, or has a shot at it?
01:21:17 Speaker_02
Identification. Can the audience identify with me? They don't have to be able to have experienced what I experienced. Can they identify with me? if they can identify with it, then I automatically have something.
01:21:41 Speaker_02
And so then it's just about how am I going to tell the story in a way? Because my goat is Bill Cosby, present circumstances excluded. Bill Cosby is my 1A, Chappelle is my 1B, Pryor is number two, and then three through 100, I don't care.
01:21:59 Speaker_02
But all three aforementioned are storytellers, and I'm a storyteller. And so everyone can find themselves in a story. Everyone wants to find themselves in a story, which is why Hollywood is still making movies.
01:22:14 Speaker_02
Because I can identify with the hero, the anti-hero, the villain, the protagonist, the victim, the damsel in distress, the prince charming. We all want to identify. And so I look for identification.
01:22:31 Speaker_00
Yeah. And then when you're putting a set together, so you're starting, you're hoping you have some kind of identification, a bridge to the audience. How do you build a joke?
01:22:44 Speaker_02
So for me, again, I don't do premise punchline. I don't do premise set up punchline because I'm not a joke teller. I'm a storyteller.
01:22:54 Speaker_02
So stories are a little bit different where you are bringing up a premise, but then there's a patience in a story that differs from a joke. The masters can make you laugh every eight to 12 seconds. That's a masterful joke teller.
01:23:15 Speaker_02
With a storyteller, there's more patience. So I'll take a chuckle and hold you in the story for what I hope to be is the big payoff, which is a big laugh. So the storytellers are kind of uniquely different in that I don't need every eight to 12 seconds
01:23:42 Speaker_00
Right. Like a bad sitcom from the 90s.
01:23:46 Speaker_02
Yeah, yeah, exactly, right? That laugh track, which is so terrible. With a story, it might be like, yeah, no, you're right. Identification. And then the payoff is, the resolution of this is the laughter that I wanted to get.
01:24:05 Speaker_02
Case in point, I'll give you one. So we went to Grapefest, which is a festival of grapes. Sorry.
01:24:15 Speaker_00
Hence the name. Hence the name.
01:24:17 Speaker_02
But I realized, I became acutely aware of the fact that, man, corn dogs live here. Like I don't, I started thinking like, where else are corndogs this prevalent in the rest of my life?
01:24:36 Speaker_02
On anybody's menu, McDonald's, Burger King, Sonic, you know what I mean? Corndogs are like, they make cameo appearances on some people's menus, but they live at the county fair, right? They live at a festival.
01:24:52 Speaker_02
And so then I began to wonder, who created it? Like who created corn dogs? Here's what I found out, I'm a nerd. Two German immigrants got to Texas with their sausage, right? And they had a hard time slinging their sausage.
01:25:11 Speaker_02
I know there's innuendo in there, but just let it go. They had a hard time trying to sling their sausage. And they were like, what if we put it on a stick? Now, I'm gonna read you. So they filed for a patent in 1927. They filed for a patent in 1927.
01:25:30 Speaker_02
It got approved in 1929. This is what it said. I'll spare you the German accent that I use when I actually do the bit.
01:25:42 Speaker_02
I have discovered that articles of food such, for instance, as Venus, boiled ham, hard-boiled eggs, cheese-sliced peaches, pineapples, bananas, and the like, fruit, cherries, dates, figs, strawberries, when impelled on sticks and dipped in batter,
01:26:05 Speaker_02
which includes in its ingredients a self-rising flour, and then deep fried in a vegetable oil in a temperature of about 390 degrees Fahrenheit. I have to say it like that. Yeah, you do.
01:26:16 Speaker_02
That a Sroten's food product on a stick for a handle is a clean, wholesome, and tasty refreshment. That's the literal patent. A portion of the patent that was filed. Wow. Okay. It gets approved. So now I want one. I want this corndog.
01:26:37 Speaker_02
I have an inner fat kid named Buddy. And if he had his way, he would kill me. But I don't eat pork. I'm not a Muslim. And I don't eat chicken. Take a picture. So I asked him, is your corndog 100% beef? The lady goes, Frank!
01:27:04 Speaker_04
Frank, huh?
01:27:07 Speaker_02
You never see Frank, you just hear him. Huh? Is the corn dog 100% beef? He goes, it's both. I'm not making none of this up. She heard him, but she doesn't question him. I'm still engaged in eye contact. I said, how is it both? And she goes, How is it both?
01:27:37 Speaker_02
And he goes, it's beef and pork. I just walked away. I was like, Frank, he's not paying attention. No. I get to the next spot. Is your corn dog 100% beef? They said it's 90% beef. It's 2% pork and chicken. I said, how did y'all get this close?
01:28:02 Speaker_02
How could you get this close and give up? Like, why wouldn't you just see it all the way through? Why would you get to... And so... Okay, you're making me cough.
01:28:12 Speaker_00
That's good.
01:28:13 Speaker_02
Right, right, right. So then my... The next thought I have is... Somebody might be thinking, Tim, you're being unreasonable. It's 98% beef. Maybe the casing is pork and just... eat the doggone corn dog, bro. That's what you wanted.
01:28:30 Speaker_02
And it's deep fried in batter. It's probably burned off all your pork tendencies, your pork-phobia. But then I just thought, would that work with anything else?
01:28:43 Speaker_02
If you went to a fine restaurant and you wanted six ounces of Wagyu beef, and they said, Mr. Newhoff, we have the finest Wagyu beef for you tonight. It's 98% Wagyu, 2% rack. Are you gonna eat it?
01:29:00 Speaker_02
If your best friend says, Carrie, 98% of me is right to die for you, but 2% wants to stab you in the back. Is this your best friend? If Tony says to you, I'm 98% faithful, but 2% of me wants to poison your food, are you eating breakfast in the morning?
01:29:28 Speaker_02
So my whole thing is that 2% is a lot. Depending on the context.
01:29:36 Speaker_00
What a beautiful, beautiful segue. And anybody can do that. Yeah. Anybody can do that. You know, which is really brilliant. Yeah, my wife uses like organic shampoo and that kind of thing. Absolutely. And it's like 97% clean ingredients.
01:29:56 Speaker_00
I'm like, what's the rest? Motor oil? Exactly. I want to know the 3%. I want to figure that out. Will that kill me? Yeah, exactly. I'm like, I'm gonna do my $3 body wash stuff. It's good enough. Because it's probably the same thing at half the price.
01:30:10 Speaker_00
That's exactly right. That's exactly right.
01:30:12 Speaker_02
It'll work. So that's the difference with a story than a joke. A joke would have had, I would have had to have gotten to the funny way faster than that. Whereas with the story, I can just, I can do a crappy German accent. I can act out, hey Frank!
01:30:35 Speaker_02
Everyone knows that person. You know what I'm saying? I do. Identification. That's what you're going with. Right. Identification. And this was the genius of Cosby for me. Cosby never reminded you he was black. That's true. Pryor did. Uh-huh.
01:30:53 Speaker_02
Pryor reminded you every three minutes. Cosby never did. Huh. He was like, if you didn't notice that, then I don't have time to bring it to your attention.
01:31:04 Speaker_02
But then he was like, my dad and my mom and white people and Hispanic people and Italians and black people and everybody is going, my dad and my mom too. They identified with him, right?
01:31:17 Speaker_00
So, seven years as a pastor.
01:31:20 Speaker_01
Yep.
01:31:21 Speaker_00
Now you're doing your own thing for the last couple years.
01:31:23 Speaker_01
Yep.
01:31:23 Speaker_00
Would love to know what were, if any, some of the things about pastoring a church that you loved? And you can think about your time as an associate on staff or lead. Yeah. Things you loved that you miss?
01:31:39 Speaker_02
I miss hugging people. I miss hugging people. I actually miss the week in and week out rhythm of like walking them through a series. Like I loved taking people from here to there. Five weeks, seven weeks, four weeks, whatever.
01:32:03 Speaker_02
I did one of my favorite series that I ever did was called Upset the Vows. It was a nine week series on marriage. Nothing for singles. I was like, hey, singles, you can listen, but I ain't even talking to you.
01:32:18 Speaker_02
Nine Weeks on Marriage, one of my favorite series that the Lord gave me kind of a download to do. So I miss taking people from here to there, and I miss hugging them.
01:32:30 Speaker_00
That's good.
01:32:30 Speaker_02
Yeah.
01:32:30 Speaker_00
What do you not miss?
01:32:33 Speaker_02
I don't miss meetings.
01:32:36 Speaker_00
But you run a company now. You got a B-side app. How do you handle that?
01:32:40 Speaker_02
I do meetings. But I'm also admitting I don't like meetings, right?
01:32:46 Speaker_00
I'm a meeting minimalist.
01:32:48 Speaker_02
Yeah, yeah, I am too. We will text, we will email. If we got to meet, make sure we really had to meet. So I don't miss the meetings. You know what? My last two years were so sweet. They gave me amnesia to the first five. So it's hard to access it.
01:33:05 Speaker_02
I think prior to the first five years, man, I don't miss the guy I tried to be the first five years. Here's the thing that's crazy, man. You started church and especially when you're sent, right? I was sent from Gateway to plant Embassy City.
01:33:28 Speaker_02
And so you're a spiritual son one weekend. And you're a spiritual father of the next. You don't even know what your dad voice is like. You don't even know how to sound. You don't even know how to talk. You're not even in your rhythm of whatever.
01:33:44 Speaker_02
I didn't even know I didn't want to dress like I was closing a deal for oil and gas until three years after I left Gateway. When I was at Potter's house, we dressed like it was a winter formal every weekend. I had a suit, tie, cufflinks.
01:33:58 Speaker_02
It was like the prom every weekend. And then I get to Gateway and it was like Blazer and, you know, some jeans or some nice slacks. You're closing a deal with oil and gas at Bob's Steakhouse.
01:34:12 Speaker_00
You know what I mean?
01:34:14 Speaker_02
And I realized, I'm like, I don't want to be either one of y'all, but I don't even know how I like to dress. I've dressed like y'all for so long. I don't even know what I like.
01:34:22 Speaker_02
So it took me three years before I realized, like, I want to just put on some jeans and a shirt and some sneakers. Um, so it can take a while to just figure out who you are. Yeah.
01:34:35 Speaker_02
And, and, um, it's part of the process, but man, I just don't miss how long it took me to give myself permission to be me. Nobody was actually telling me I couldn't be me. I just didn't give myself permission to be me.
01:34:51 Speaker_00
Huh. Huh. What's the hardest part of leading your own organization? Or is it still honeymoon stage?
01:35:00 Speaker_02
No. The hardest part is being patient. When you know what you saw in your head, but you gotta wait. for that to materialize, that's very difficult. It's just being patient and just allowing the process to take care of itself.
01:35:27 Speaker_02
You know you heard from God, you've got all these confirmations, and you gotta go through all these iterations before it even looks like what you saw in your spirit. That takes a long time.
01:35:39 Speaker_00
It does. Yeah. It does. How do you set boundaries to make sure that your work doesn't consume you? Because when you're working for someone else or you're working for a church, there are established rhythms. Yeah. Right? Yeah.
01:35:52 Speaker_00
With your company, you could do 24-7. I could. You can't, but you always can.
01:35:57 Speaker_01
Yeah, yeah, for sure.
01:35:58 Speaker_00
So how do, how have you set boundaries for yourself?
01:36:00 Speaker_02
Well, um, one of the ways I set boundary for myself is by setting boundaries for my staff. Like, once you give them boundaries and then tell them they're empowered to keep them, then they'll respect yours too.
01:36:17 Speaker_02
I think a lot of, especially back, I spent, you know, all of my time in the pastorate into the last two years, right? So, I was always amazed at how many pastors built something for themselves that they didn't build for their staff.
01:36:33 Speaker_00
We were talking about that yesterday. Or you and I were talking about that before. Yeah, for sure. That's right. It was like, yeah, I'm going to take the weekend off, but you guys keep at it.
01:36:41 Speaker_02
Right. Exactly. We have a culture of rest here, except I still need these videos turned out, flipped over.
01:36:49 Speaker_00
And by the way, I just had the idea this morning.
01:36:51 Speaker_02
Right, right. Exactly.
01:36:52 Speaker_00
Exactly.
01:36:52 Speaker_02
Y'all can handle it. Y'all can handle it, right? But when you empower people to say like, hey, you don't have to pick up the phone after six. Right? Like, because I'm not picking up mine. Right? And if I call you, you don't have to pick it up.
01:37:07 Speaker_02
And to let it go to voicemail. You know what I mean? The voicemail is fine. And then I have some self-imposed things. So I think I only have five hours on social media a day. And then everything shuts down. And then at seven, all of my apps shut down.
01:37:24 Speaker_00
That's cool, that's just an iPhone setting?
01:37:26 Speaker_02
Yeah.
01:37:27 Speaker_00
Cool.
01:37:27 Speaker_02
Yeah, 7 p.m., all of my apps shut down and they don't come back up until 7 a.m.
01:37:35 Speaker_02
And what I would have to do is, like, it gives you the option, do you want, I don't know who would ever, who's the crazy person that can, like, one of the options is, you can unlock this app for 60 seconds. I'm like, who can do that?
01:37:48 Speaker_02
Right, but the other one's 15 minutes, and then there's one, like, you can bypass it for the rest of the day. Right. Once it shuts down, I'm like, oh, I guess there's something else I got to do with my life. Here's the other thing, Kerry.
01:38:00 Speaker_02
This is one of my favorites. We went to church in Cape Coast two years ago. I put my phone on do not disturb. I haven't taken it off. So my cell phone is like a home phone in my pocket because I don't know anything until I get ready to pick up my phone.
01:38:21 Speaker_02
In the same way you would go out your day and then come home and like, boop, you have 13 messages. You know what I mean?
01:38:29 Speaker_00
It's like, it's a home phone in my pocket. That was a change eight or nine years ago. Maybe, maybe not that long. Maybe it was seven or eight years ago. I made, after my burnout, I'm like, this is ridiculous. Yeah! It was probably 10 years ago.
01:38:42 Speaker_00
It was like, Do Not Disturb Forever? Yeah, forever. And it's great. I was just on my phone very briefly because I had a meeting at 2 and I'm like, hey, can we push back this interview? That was it.
01:38:52 Speaker_00
But there were a bunch of text messages that came in while you and I have been talking. Yeah. But like, my Apple Watch did not buzz.
01:38:59 Speaker_03
Great.
01:38:59 Speaker_00
I've got it on perpetual Do Not Disturb. Yeah, it's just... I've got a few people programmed to ring through. Yeah, my wife. Yeah, my wife, my kids.
01:39:07 Speaker_03
Yeah, for sure.
01:39:08 Speaker_00
And they know, call me if it's a nuclear emergency. That's right, absolutely. And most days, there are no nuclear emergencies.
01:39:14 Speaker_02
For sure, absolutely.
01:39:14 Speaker_00
I'm not that important.
01:39:15 Speaker_02
Right, right. Yeah, absolutely. And so I, you know, we talked about where do we operate from? And we get to operate from these incredible margins of rest. And so I do most of my calls on my six mile walk. That's great. Walk and talk. Walk and talk, right?
01:39:34 Speaker_02
And like, I'm getting my exercise in, I'm doing it in the morning. And then throughout the rest of the day, when I have margin, I'll pick up my phone and I'll text you.
01:39:48 Speaker_02
I've never, never has there been a season in my life where I've left this many people on red as I do now. And I don't know how many I have right now. I'm afraid to check, but I'm going to get back to them. Just not today.
01:40:04 Speaker_02
Not today or tomorrow or maybe this month. Yeah. I'm so sorry, y'all. I love y'all. I love y'all. We weren't, we weren't that guy. He's off screen, but that guy is 13. He'll be 14 next month.
01:40:17 Speaker_02
And I got a 16 year old that's starting to drive and I got a wife and our staff and we're like family.
01:40:24 Speaker_00
Yeah.
01:40:24 Speaker_02
And so I, everybody else is going to be here.
01:40:27 Speaker_00
Yep.
01:40:28 Speaker_02
Yep. You know, and as a platform grows, that's only going to get more. Yeah, absolutely. And the people that love you and understand you and that create that change.
01:40:38 Speaker_02
I had Irwin McManus here a few months ago, and he made a statement that I thought was brilliant. We were talking about how, like, relationships can change as the rhythms of your life change.
01:40:50 Speaker_02
And what people, the change affects the people you love, and one of the, if they're not healthy, one of their retorts is, you've changed. And Irwin's response was, and you haven't.
01:41:08 Speaker_00
Boom. Boom. Yeah. Right? Life is constant fine-tuning and reinvention. It is. It is for me. Yeah. That's why I was talking about that at breakfast today with a friend who worked with me seven years ago.
01:41:24 Speaker_01
Yeah.
01:41:25 Speaker_00
And I'm like, you know, I'm not quite the same. I was probably harder on you than I would be today. And we're still friends, it's all cool.
01:41:32 Speaker_00
But I'm like, you know, people at Conexus now, because I've been there for 30 years, are talking about Carry 2.0. And that's a good thing.
01:41:41 Speaker_02
That's good.
01:41:42 Speaker_00
And Carry 1.0 wasn't a nightmare, but he needed some fine-tuning. Right, for sure. He needed some work. Absolutely. He needed a lot of work. And I hope there's a Carry 3.0.
01:41:49 Speaker_02
Yeah, absolutely. I hope so. Because why would we be done? I have not arrived. Yeah, me either. No, I'm very... So, so, um, I got trained in StratOp. I went through Patterson's deal, so I have StratOp.
01:42:04 Speaker_02
And, um, you know, they do the thinking wavelength on it and try to find out.
01:42:07 Speaker_00
I've never been trained. Have you ever gone through StratOp? No, no. I respect the people. I have friends who do it. Oh, so dope. You're so smart. Yeah, they're so dope.
01:42:16 Speaker_02
So, I'm a nerd, and I have strategy as one of my five, and the, the strength finders, and so it just fits me. But I, I did, uh, I do strength, I did strength, uh, Strat up. Strat up.
01:42:29 Speaker_02
And on the thinking wavelength, one of the questions is, what is your aversion to change? And like, one is like, you hate it. Ten is like, you could change clothes right now in front of everybody. I'm ten. I could change right now.
01:42:43 Speaker_02
So, leaving California was the biggest change. But then when I had to transition from the Potter's house, it was like, season's up, bye. Everybody was like, what are you doing? I was like,
01:42:55 Speaker_05
Bye!
01:42:56 Speaker_02
And then going to plan Embassy City. It was like, well, great. And then when it was time to leave Embassy City, I was like, I love you guys. I'm crying and I love you. Bye.
01:43:05 Speaker_02
And now in this iteration, it's like, I love this and I'll do it until he tells me to stop. And when he tells me to stop, when I tell you I'm out, I am out. You're out. Yeah.
01:43:16 Speaker_02
And then when he tells me to pick back up a comedy, I go straight into the comedy clubs. Do you know why you're comfortable with change?
01:43:29 Speaker_04
It's a good question. I don't think I've been asked that before. Why am I comfortable with change?
01:43:40 Speaker_02
I think I'm comfortable with change. Yeah. Nope. Yeah. I mean, I can, I'm going to say the statement and then I'll give you my, for instance, I am comfortable with change because I trust God and he's the one, he is the God of my changes.
01:43:58 Speaker_02
And when I moved from California to Texas in 1997, which is, to this day, the most significant change I ever made, because every blessing that has ever come to me was because of that one statement, buy a one-way ticket to Dallas. Every statement.
01:44:16 Speaker_02
You've heard that. You heard that voice, buy a one-way ticket to Dallas. A month before I moved here, my parents raised $400 for me in their church service.
01:44:24 Speaker_02
They bought me a one-way Greyhound bus ticket, and I packed three suitcases, and I had $400 to my name, and I took a two-and-a-half-day ride to Texas, and I've been here ever since. Every bountiful blessing that I have is based on that one word. Okay.
01:44:41 Speaker_02
So I learned in the biggest change of my life, because I was a West Coast, like I'm Westside for life, I ain't never leaving, and God brought me here, and that one change proved to me that I could trust God.
01:45:04 Speaker_00
You know, that's good. Even facing some change at this stage in my life or contemplating it, I'm like, oh, he's been faithful so often. And there's something fun about a new assignment. Yeah, there is. There's something fun about reinvention.
01:45:19 Speaker_02
There is. There is. That's what I love about going back to comedy clubs now. I'm back in there with 20-year-olds. Right? I'm at a completely different stage.
01:45:29 Speaker_02
And another thing I love about comedy is it doesn't matter how old you are, you can just dive back into it. Right. There's no ageism in comedy. You could be... That's true. Yeah, there's no ageism in comedy.
01:45:39 Speaker_00
Yeah. I mean, Bob Newhart was doing it until the day he died. Bob Hope. Yeah. You know what I mean?
01:45:46 Speaker_02
Larry David. I mean, you think about all these like really... Yeah, Larry David's funnier as he's getting older. That's right. Cosby did his last special on Comedy Central. I think he was 78 at the time, 2013. Wow. Yeah.
01:46:01 Speaker_02
So there's... Or he was definitely a septuagenarian. I don't know exactly what age he was, but I know he was in his 70s.
01:46:08 Speaker_00
Yeah.
01:46:09 Speaker_02
But with that said, so there's no ageism here. And I'm a completely different comic than I was in my 20s. My material's completely different. What I find funny is completely different. What I notice is completely different.
01:46:28 Speaker_02
And so I'm back at it and I'm... And it doesn't, like, I don't need a Netflix special and I'm good enough to have one. So we'll just see. But I get to stand at the end.
01:46:41 Speaker_02
I'll tell you this, man, I didn't think I would, this is the first time I've said this on, I haven't even said this on Basement. So standing at the cross section of faith and culture as a comic, I get to address stuff I never could as a preacher.
01:47:00 Speaker_00
I believe. You get to go there because people are laughing. That's one thing I learned about and the reason I try to have some kind of funny element in everything I talk about except this podcast. Yeah, yeah. I never joke on this podcast.
01:47:16 Speaker_00
I don't know why. Anyway, it's this idea of being disarmed. If I'm talking about money, in that first 10 minutes, I want people laughing, poking each other. If I'm talking about sex, I want people laughing. Because then they're like,
01:47:35 Speaker_00
My defenses are down and then you go in and boom, there's the point. Yeah, absolutely. Is that why or different?
01:47:41 Speaker_02
No, that's why. It's the only medium where people at a subconscious level turn their ability to be offended off. Right. They check it in at the door. Like you have to really For a person to get offended at a comedy show, they didn't get the memo. Right.
01:48:09 Speaker_02
They wasted that ticket. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I was talking to a young lady, 32-year-old Jewish girl, bright, intelligent, and she works for a huge talent agency, and they're contemplating if they want me to be a part of their agency. Wow.
01:48:28 Speaker_02
So she says, I'm telling her, I feel like I'm supposed to stand at the intersection of faith and culture and be able to talk my stuff the way Dave Chappelle and Hasan Minhaj and Jon Stewart talk about their stuff.
01:48:42 Speaker_02
And she goes, I never tell anybody this, but I really love Louis CK. And I said, you do know as a white woman, That should not be the statement that comes out of your mouth. And she goes, I know, but he's a genius.
01:49:01 Speaker_02
I said, do you know why you're saying that? And she goes, because he's funny. I said, no, it's because he's a comic. If he was a professor of a university, you'd hate his guts. Oh, yeah. If he was a pastor of a church, you'd hate his gut.
01:49:18 Speaker_02
I said, it's only because he's a comic that you've checked your offense at the door and you can appreciate his genius. I said, I want to do the same thing as a believer in Jesus. Dave gets to talk all his stuff. John gets to give his perspective.
01:49:33 Speaker_00
And you get to talk about your stuff.
01:49:34 Speaker_02
I want to talk about mine.
01:49:35 Speaker_00
That's cool. The only reason I'm saying thank you for being on the podcast is I got to catch up. That's the only reason. I do not want you to miss your flight. I have been, I have been sitting on this couch for four and a half.
01:49:51 Speaker_02
You have? Between mine and yours.
01:49:53 Speaker_00
It's so true. Amazing. Thank you, man. Tim, you have such a gracious demeanor. I love your style, your approach, your innovation, and also your obedience. I know this wasn't your idea. Hey, I have a new strategy. It's like you're following what you believe.
01:50:11 Speaker_03
That's right.
01:50:12 Speaker_00
God's path for your life is. But to have authentic conversations. and help people process their deconstruction.
01:50:19 Speaker_01
Yeah.
01:50:20 Speaker_00
Start to get away from destruction. That's right. To reconstruction. That's right. And even begin to open up a whole new dialogue. Yeah.
01:50:29 Speaker_00
And one last thing, you know, what I was thinking, I don't think I completed this thought, but early on in the interview, I was thinking, you know, a pastor who had a podcast where they went a little more uncensored.
01:50:43 Speaker_00
And I'm not talking about just dropping F-bombs and stuff like that, but just like, here's what didn't make it to Sunday, right? Here's the backstory, here's the loop, here's more of the struggle, more of the doubt.
01:50:56 Speaker_00
Not incongruous with what you said on Sunday, but a supplement too. to break that divide down, I think could be a real ministry opportunity. And I just want to say thank you for what you're doing. Thanks for being so generous to have me on.
01:51:10 Speaker_00
It's great to have you on my show.
01:51:12 Speaker_02
This is great. This is great. Anytime you're in Dallas, man, let's just connect.
01:51:17 Speaker_00
Well, we'll hang out next time. And if you were going to direct people, To find you online, what's the easiest place?
01:51:26 Speaker_02
The easiest place for us online, if you're on YouTube, it's just The Basement with Tim Ross. We also want you to download that B-Side app.
01:51:35 Speaker_02
You can be one of the 57,000 that downloads, or you can be one of the 8,100 that subscribes, and we want you to be a subscriber. And it's not just me in there. It's lots of conversations. Yeah, who else is in there? Carl Lentz is in there right now.
01:51:47 Speaker_02
Lecrae is in there right now, along with myself. We got a whole new roster of talent that we'll be signing between now and the end of the year. So 2025, we'll have some fresh voices that are a part of this as well.
01:51:59 Speaker_02
And people that want to partner with us and just allow their content to live on our platform. I'm super excited about that. We also are on iTunes and Spotify for all of our audio files.
01:52:10 Speaker_02
All of my Instagram handles start with upset so upset the gram on Instagram Upset the talk on tik-tok and upset the X on X formerly the blue bird Twitter I do want to caution your your audience that if you go back in our archives there were there have been two episodes where f-bombs were dropped and
01:52:32 Speaker_02
Sensitive ears. Sensitive ears, but it was censored. Like, we beat that. We didn't play it. But I was very, very passionate in those. We were covering some pretty tough topics, and my emotions ran high, and those words came out.
01:52:53 Speaker_02
If you Google me, they're gonna make you think that all of my episodes are like this. That I'm the Dave Chappelle of podcasters.
01:53:02 Speaker_00
No, but it sounds more like this. It's this. Yeah. Yeah, it's this.
01:53:06 Speaker_02
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, thank you, Kerry. I appreciate you. Tim, appreciate you. Love you. Thank you. Love you too.
01:53:12 Speaker_00
Well, I hope you agree with me that that was refreshing, and I so appreciate Tim's transparency. I think we have a lot to learn in ministry about that, and maybe he's right.
01:53:21 Speaker_00
Podcasting could play a big role, not just in terms of, let's listen to the message again, but if you actually got authentic with people. and shared from your heart, like, imagine what could happen. Hey, if you want more, we've got show notes for you.
01:53:34 Speaker_00
You can go to kerryneuhoff.com slash episode 692. You can get everything there absolutely free, including links to everything that Tim and I talked about. As you're Christmas shopping, what about doing something for someone else?
01:53:47 Speaker_00
Share the love of Christ with those in need with Convoy's 2024 gift catalog at convoyofhope.org slash kerry. Next episode, we're going to talk revival, pre-revival, with Al Gordon.
01:54:00 Speaker_00
Met him in London, have been following him for a while, and we had a great conversation on exactly what is revival. How do you break it down? And a whole lot more. Also coming up, we've got Will Gadara,
01:54:13 Speaker_00
Chad Veach, Bob Goff, JP Pucluta, Jenny Allen, Noah Herron, Craig Groeschel, and a whole lot more coming up on the podcast. Very excited for this. And before you go, would you leave a rating and review? If you appreciated this episode, let us know.
01:54:29 Speaker_00
Give us a shout out on social. We often repost or tag you when you do that. And I got one more thing for you. Have you joined the 30,000 leaders who have downloaded my preaching cheat sheet?
01:54:40 Speaker_00
You know, I did an episode for this podcast recently, and I thought I was ready to go, and I realized, oh man, I didn't do my own homework.
01:54:49 Speaker_00
So I pulled out The Principles and The Preaching Cheat Sheet, and I rewrote the piece, and it just got a lot better. And I did that before I shipped it and y'all said, that wasn't very good. Well, what if you could do that on a regular basis?
01:55:03 Speaker_00
Just go to preachingcheatsheet.com, download it. It's 10 simple questions that you can run your message, your sermon, your talk, your podcast through before you deliver it to make sure it's going to land before you find out after. that it didn't.
01:55:18 Speaker_00
PreachingCheatSheet.com joined 30,000 other leaders with that. Link is also available in the show notes. Thank you so much for listening, everyone. And I hope our time together today helped you identify and scale a growth barrier you're facing.