Theology Central is Number 4

0:02 Looking at our world from a theological perspective. This is the Theology Central podcast, making Theology Central, Ladies and gentlemen. A lot of the time, I turn on this microphone and I share with you my frustration, my discouragement, my depression, my irritation. A lot of times I turn on the microphone and I express a lot of negative emotions. I think I do that, probably more than I want to. But I also try to be very transparent. I try my best to be like, hey, I'm just a center with a microphone. I'm still trying to figure all of this out, and you get to hear me try to figure things out, and I express all of the negative emotions that can come with trying to figure things out.

0:52 All right, So I try my best to be transparent. So I thought maybe today I would turn on the microphone and I would share maybe some good news, maybe something that's encouraging, maybe something that should maybe it should make me happy. But well, the fact that I'm so jaded and skeptical. Am I going to just then explain this away? Possibly? But we're going to talk about all of that. But first, let me say good afternoon everyone. It is Friday, March the twenty eighth, twenty twenty five. It is currently two twelve pm Central Time, and I'm coming to you live from the Theology Central studio located right here in Abilene, Texas. Now, I have spent a large portion of my adult life in front of microphones, right, either wearing a lapel microphone or sitting in a chair in front of a microphone, talking about anything and everything and doing broadcasting. I had a program on Christian Radio, then I got kicked off Christian Radio. I've done kind of a well podcasting before it was really called podcasting, dealing with news. I now do this podcast about, you know, called Theology Central, talking about theology. I've been broadcasting for a very very long time, and you go through different seasons I think and broadcasting, right, and there's lots of reasons why you go through these different seasons. I think

2:22 you have that initial excitement, right, Oh, I'm going to broadcast. I'm going to create a podcast. Okay, this is going to be fun and it's interesting, and you can't wait to just get something done and then you get it uploaded and then you get the excitement. Oh look, it showed up on Spotify. It's on Apple podcasts and you get to see what it looks like when you open the app, and it's just like there's all the excitement and fun and you don't even really necessarily have a plan. You're just enjoying broadcasting and you're being a part of this entire podcasting broadcasting world, and your content is here, your content is there. It's just kind of fun and exciting. And then you may enter into a stage where now you're kind of very you're kind of committed. You're gonna change the world. You're gonna do this, You're gonna accomplish this, You're going to do this, You're going to do this.

3:10 Maybe you're looking at it as oh, Okay, I'm a pastor of this church, or I serve this church in this capacity. I'm gonna use this broadcast to as an extension of the ministry of the church, and people will really appreciate what I'm doing because I'm trying to expand the ministry. Yeah, we may be a little church in the middle of nowhere, but now I'm broadcasting around the world and people will see that, Oh, that's a great thing that the church's ministry is reaching out. And you can be like, Okay, work hard, work hard. This is for the church. This is for the church. This is for the church. Now, sometimes you don't know if your motives are pure or not, because it may be is it really about the church or is it really about me? But there's you feel like mission, you feel like there's a mission. You feel like there's a purpose, and so you work and you work, and you work and you work, and you work and you work. And then sometimes you may kind of transition out of that to more of a well, I still think it's necessary, but am I really You start maybe you start kind of going through a season of doubt or question am I really accomplishing anything?

4:13 Is it really worth my time? How much time do I put into this? How much effort? And then you start kind of questioning yourself because what people don't know when you send in an empty room talking into a microphone for an hour, two hours, three hours, four hours, no matter depending, and you know how many how you're you know, measuring the hours hours per day, hours per week, hours per month, how many hours you spent in a year. I mean when you look at how many episodes, let's say I do in a year, that's a lot of my life sitting in front of a microphone, and so sometimes you start asking. Maybe some people will say as a fleshy question, but you're kind of like, what am I really accomplishing? I mean, that's a lot of hours, because I know this is hard for people to understand.

5:01 You're just sitting in a room talking into a microphone and then you upload, and so you have to look for some kind of like am I really doing something? So sometimes you look you look for emails. Am I going to get an encouraging email? Am I going to get something that's supportive? I'm gonna get someone like, hey, thank you so very much. Am I going to get a report on how you help someone, encourage someone, challenge someone, change someone's thinking. Okay, sometimes you get those, but those are far fewer than than people would probably imagine. The positive ones are much fewer in number than the negative ones. The negative ones are you said this incorrectly, you did this incorrectly. You should try this, you should change this, you should do this. Stop doing this, You're an idiot.

5:44 You are more on whatever the case may be. So sometimes that's hard to get any kind of clear measurement because either your email box is empty or it's filled with more negative and then ever once in a while you get that very encouraging one. So but it's hard to make because again you can do You could do forty broadcasts and not hear from anybody, so you never really know, like how do I measure it? And then you're like, well, am I looking for some kind of praise? Is it because I'm is it my own need for approval or for prayer? Well okay, that's a wrong attitude. So then you kind of feel bad that you're thinking that way. But then you keep looking at your email going, man, I don't see anything. Well, okay, maybe people don't like that.

6:29 Maybe I'm wasting my time. So it's hard to figure out. So then you start looking at numbers because as a podcast you have all kinds of analytics, right, so you get like how many downloads, how many streams? How many how many downloads per episode? Okay, well what does that look? Right? Okay? That okay? Ah, man, that's not looking really good. Oh wait, we've had an increase. Oh that's really good. But why do we have the increase? Wait, now we have a decrease. Why do we have a decrease? And then you look on all of the different platforms YouTube, you know, sermon audio, and just you're looking at all your different analytics and you're just like, what do I do with all of this? I got this many numbers here, this many numbers here, this many numbers here. But wait, we don't show up on the Spotify podcasting chart. Okay, we show up on sometimes, we show up on Apple charts sometimes, but you know, it's hard sometimes to know what that even means. And then then other places we don't show up anywhere, and you're kind of like, well, all right, that's not very So you look to emails, you look to analytics. Sometimes you look and I know this is going to sound very materialistic. You look when you get that PayPal notification. Someone just gave you ten dollars, someone just sent in twenty dollars, someone just sit in fifty dollars, someone just sit in one hundred dollars, And that really obviously has a very big impact because that's someone who thinks that what you're doing is actually worth they're hard earned money, and so that can go like whoa, Okay, now that usually what it does to me is it almost it almost it has such an impact on me

8:02 because I'm like, oh, my goodness, they just gave that much money. All right, I better do fifty broadcasts, I better do one hundred, I better do more because they got to get their money's worth. And so a lot of times i'm it's still it's very encouraging, but it almost makes me them feel like I need to do more. So no matter what you get, it has this kind of like, if you have good numbers, well you're trying to figure out why. If you have bad numbers, you're trying to figure out why. If you get a good email, then you kind of ask yourself, well, why don't you get more good emails? Right? If you get negative emails, you start thinking, well, maybe I do everything wrong. It plays on your mind and it can be just it can just be like oh what do I do? And not only that, you just have the never ending stress of produce more content, produce more content, produce more content, produce more content, sit down, record more, do more? Do more? How many do you need to do? And then sometimes you feel like you're always chasing, like, well, that episode wasn't good. Maybe I'll do another one and then it'll be better. It'll be better. Oh, well, that weird. Maybe if I do another one, maybe if I and you're always thinking, if you do one more, you're going to finally feel like this was the perfect one.

9:11 Well does that perfect one make up for the three bad ones? And there's just so much happens behind the microphone that people just don't know. They don't All you see is oh, I got a notification, new content, Oh new content, oh new content? Or well I wonder why he hasn't produced anything today, like I don't know what, or you may not even think at all, you may not even care. But from this side, there's a lot going on, and sometimes it can lead to just questioning, doubting, frustration, you know, what am I doing? Why am I even doing this? Does anyone even care? And you start having a pity party, You feel sorry for yourself, You get discouraged, you get depressed. It can all be a lot when it comes to broadcasting. And then you can start questioning.

9:59 You know a lot of you can just start questioning everything. So a lot of times I turn on the microphone, try to be very honest with you, try to be very transparent. But I can turn on the microphone today to say, well, I at least got one of those positive emails because at one forty nine pm Central time one forty nine pm Central time, I received an email with this as the subject line, Theology Central featured in feedspot Top forty Theology podcast. And I'm like, wait, what, okay?

10:41 That that sounds good. Now. At first I'm gonna so at first I'm like what. Then immediately I'm like, oh, wait, I bet you this is what is this? Someone messing with me, right, because I'm typically kind of jaded at this point. But again, here's the subject line, Theology Central. Theology Central featured in feedspot Top forty Theology podcast and so it says Hi. Then it gives me it's from the founder of feed Spot. I'm not going to try to pronounce his name because I would probably do it horribly, but it's from the founder of feed Spot, and it says this, I would like to personally congratulate you as your podcast, Theology Central, has been selected by our panelist as one of the top forty theology podcasts on the web.

11:32 Then it gives me a link, and I will include the link so that you can see the entire list of the top forty podcast Top top forty Theology podcast. I'll put a link here under the description and the show notes, as some people would say, and you can look at all the top forty. We'll look at them here in a minute. It goes on to say, this is the most comprehensive list of top forty theology podcasts on the Internet, and I'm honored to have you as a part of this. You can also add your website link and it gives me all the things I can do. We've created a badge for you to share with your audience. We'd be grateful if you can help spread the word by briefly mentioning about the top forty theology podcast list and any of your upcoming posts. Please feel free to reach out with any questions. So I clicked on the link, I'm going to click on it again and here it is feed spot forty best theology podcast Looking for theology podcasters to listen to or for your outreach campaign to promote your brand or product. Our theology podcasters list is what you need, right. So basically this is telling people out there who are looking to sponsor something or maybe for some kind of to place advertisement, well, they can contact the people on this list because this is the best theology podcast on the Internet. All right, so here are the forty best theology podcasts worth listening to in

13:03 twenty twenty five. Are you ready? Number one Lisa Harper's Back Porch Theology, Right, I have no idea who that is, okay, but she's number one, So Lisa Harper is number one, okay. Number two is Reformed Form. Reform Form supports the church and presenting every person mature in Christ, providing reform philological resources to pastors, scholars, and it has more, all right. And then a People's theology exploring theologies that inspire and liberate for formerly known as religionless church. Okay, that's the name of them. That's number three. And then number four, number four Theology Central Theology Central. Now, our rating is not great. We have a three point nine rating. The other ones above me have a four point seven and a four point seven out of five, so they have a four point seven out of five. We have a three point nine. Our rating is not good. It never is other people. The number five is Deep Talks. They have a four point nine rating. Reclaiming My Theology has a four point nine. Theology Mom has a four point nine.

14:31 Her Theology's podcast number eight has a five out of five, so I mean almost everyone has better ratings than we do. So it's pretty awesome that I've made it to number four, even though more people dislike me than other podcasts that are on the list. On the other list, everyone seems to love them. I don't tend to be loved. And that's okay. I know I'm polarizing, I'm divisive. I know I am controversial, not because that's what I set out to do. It's just because I don't like I'm not I don't play along very well with people's still logical systems.

15:16 I don't care to adhere to someone's still logical system. I don't care be a part of someone's still logical team. And I'm gonna chald and I tend to challenge what a lot of mainstream Christianity says. I kind of challenge it. Some people don't necessarily like my approach. You go listen to any of these other podcasts, I guarantee you they probably have a host and a co host. They probably do interviews. So I don't follow this conversational kind of format where there's you know, two people or three people. I don't do any of that. I don't follow A Mine is not overly produced. Mine is recorded live. It's not recorded and then edit it. It's recorded live. What you hear is what you get. There's no stopping, editing, removing this, fixing this. It just whatever happens happens. So I tend to tick everyone off because I don't play nicely with someone's philological teams. I mine is not overly produced.

16:14 It's just recorded live, no second takes. And I don't do the you know, hey, I'm so and so, and here's my co host so and so, and you kind of do the little back and forth. I don't. I don't follow any of the scripts. I don't, so it's pretty amazing that we made it to number four. I don't know how we made it to number four. I don't know. Now there's things I can do with feed Spot, like I could. I can sign up for their I don't want that. If I can get to this, okay, I don't want to export that. I don't know if I can get to it here. So, yeah, there's different things you can do. You can sign up for different things, you can sign in. I don't know if I can even sign in. Maybe I'll have to try to sign in.

17:04 At some point, I will sign in and see if I can what I can. There's some things I can control, so like the description on here is a little out of date. Our artwork is up to date, and maybe I can update that's I think that's the newest art work. So but the the description is a little outdated because it was kind of promoting the church, and so it's not really I mean, even though it's still connected to the church, for the most part, it's you know, it's it's kind of become its own thing. So I probably need to see if I can update that. I don't even know if I have access to updated. You can subscribe. I can subscribe like nineteen dollars a month to be able to have be able to do more things. But I don't, you know, I don't have the money to do that. So but that's okay, that's that's neither here nor there. The point is we made it to number four.

17:59 I don't know if that means it anything of significance. I never know, Like if you look on listen notes, we are in the top five percent of all podcasts in the world. What does that mean? I mean it sounds good, right, it sounds like yay. I don't know what that actually means. Right, we're number four on feed Spot. I don't know what that actually means when it comes to actual numbers, because the way you're supposed to how do you determine what you're accomplishing? Is it based on how many people? A lot of times, if you look on how to determine the success of a podcast, it comes down to the number of downloads and streams per episode. If you look at our numbers, we were not successful by almost any metric a listener engagement. That would be the number of emails, the ratings, how many people have rated the podcast and is it five stars, how many people give it thumbs up? How many people leave positive comments on YouTube or anywhere, how many people even leave comments on YouTube? And you look at some of those numbers, We're not successful. We're not Let's just be honest, We're not successful. And you know, in some ways that's a good thing. In some ways, I don't want to be I know, this is like the only thing I've ever wanted to do is be successful enough. I wish I could just be successful enough in order to just say, hey, good I can do this. This could pay my bills if I needed it to. This can support not only

19:31 what it costs to be out there, but it gives me extra money to do things like book giveaways or do this, or to promote it here, or to do this like it would be It would be great if I could just bring in. I don't want to get too popular, and I never and and I'm not designed to get too popular because I'm going to offend people obviously. I'm going to offend all the charismatics obviously, and I typically end up reform offending everyone else. Reform people don't like me because I'm not reformed enough or or I'm too reformed or I'm not enough. And then for the non reform people, I'm too reformed, so I take off everyone there. I'm too dispensational, I'm not dispensational enough. I'm to this, I'm to that because everybody wants to put me in a box, and I'm like, I don't care about your box, and so then I end up offending everyone I'm not. I definitely hate the politicizing of the American Church. I go against Christian nationalism. That gets me in trouble. I don't bow the need to Donald Trump and kiss the ring of maga. I criticize, Oh, that gets me in trouble with the Trump supporters. And then oh, and then I'm not liberal enough. But I'm not conservative enough.

20:38 I'm not this. I'm never going to be designed to be popular, and I know that. And again, in some ways, I love that. You just wish you could reach enough a certain level where you're like, Okay, this is good. You've got enough people supporting you so that you could pay the bill and have a little extra where you could do things that are fun and helpful, like giveaways or give people access to digital curriculums or the different things that we've done in the past. I do miss being able to do more and give people things. But but I you know, but again, I'm not going to create I mean, most of the podcasts have, uh they they sell merch you know, they have you know, they have their own you know, T shirts and their own hats.

21:28 I'm not going to have Theology Central shirts and Theology Central hats. I'm not going to turn it into merchandise. To me, the way it should work is if people like it, they will support it, and and you know, and and in many cases it doesn't work, it doesn't really and so then you But at the same time, you don't want to have to In some ways, you don't want to be beholden to support, right because if the minute you have to rely on people's support, you kind of you're kind of owned, right, because you got to keep doing you got to keep making those people happy. And the one thing I know about me is I never make anyone happy. I never do. My personality is.

22:12 Not good at making people happy. I make enemies before I make friends. Okay, I don't. I irritate people before I you know, I don't create fans, I create critics. It's just my personality. So I don't want to be beholden to that anyway. Right. That's one of the things about being a podcaster is I'm free from all of those you know, restrictions and constraints. I don't I'm not bound by that, right, I'm not being restrained. I'm not being I'm not you know, I'm not. I don't have that. I can turn on the microphone and say whatever I want. Whoever gets offended. I gets offended, and it does, and it ultimately doesn't matter, right, But if you start getting too popular, well, then you start worrying about your popularity.

22:58 That's bad. You get a certain level of popularity that typically brings in money or opportunities, which now you're gonna have to you're going to be beholden to. None of that is good, None of that is good. All of that is negative, I think. So I'm just grateful that we made it to number four. That's pretty amazing. I don't think we could ever make it to number one. I don't know, I don't know. You know, if you look on some of these, you can see that the reason they're so popular is like this one. Lisa Harper's Backporch Theology three hundred and seven thousand followers on Facebook, Twitter over forty six thousand.

23:46 All Right Reform Form. Over eleven thousand Facebook followers, Twitter over seventeen thousand, Instagram over four thousand. People's Theology over three thousand on Twitter, Deep Talks over three thousand on Twitter. Reclaiming My Theology over nine thousand on Twitter, over thirteen thousand on Instagram. Theology Mom over ten thousand on Facebook, Her theology podcast Well There over one thousand on Instagram, only six hundred and forty one on Facebook. But you see many of these have a big social media presence, a big social media presence.

24:27 So typically in the podcasting world you have to really you have to really maximize and utilize social media. But I don't want to be a part of all of that. I don't you get there and then people then and I know that's the way to play the game, right, See, build, you build a social media presence, and then what are you supposed to do? You released episodes that are going to be somewhat controversial, that's going to create backlash a little bit, right, create a little anger. Then everyone starts posting comment and then they post comments and they post comments, and then other people and then get you get you get you caught up in a firestorm, right, and so then algorithms starts picking up. Oh everyone's talking about this, and then your stuff starts getting picked up and found and suggested and recommended, and then the next thing, you know, you start growing in numbers. But I don't want to be in the firestorm. I don't want to be in the controversy. I don't want any of that. There's there's nothing valuable about that. It's just arguing and griping, and I try to be very careful even when people post negative comments on YouTube, like how much do I even engage it? Because I may spark I may be able to spark a little fight and maybe that just will bring more people to the comments section, which then the algorithm will pick up. Then people will it will recommend Theology Central, but it will have to do that on the back of controversy. Do I have to do that on the to be in the middle of some never ending fight with people?

25:54 Nah? No, no, no, no, no no, no, it's not it's not work. I would rather I just want to find a group of people who approve with what who are they benefit to such a level from what I do that they're willing to support it. And a group of people who are willing to go to Apple podcast and give me a five star rating or on Spotify give us a five star rating. I'm just you know, just looking for people to do that. So that's where we are today. I thought it's some good news, but yeah. We made it to number four. We made it to number four, So I'm very grateful for that. I think that's a positive thing. Someone emailed me at two twenty one PM, he said, congrats. And number four two top ten and it says Theology Central.

26:56 This is what he says. Theology Central makes me think about different sides of an issue or passage, even if I don't agree, which is what I like. Well, first of all, hey, now, who could disagree with anything I have to say right now? And it says you were selected by our panelists. I wonder who that is and what theological background the person has. It says number one is Lisa Harper. Someone already looked this up, obviously. Number one is Lisa Harper's Backporch Theology. You ought to review whatever that is. At least it says the Center's Dialogue on Teaching has a dignified name. The rest are mostly generic. That's that's true. The list goes on for one and six items. Wow, who would have ever have time to listen to all of that?

27:45 Right? And then someone said, I started listening to the Paula White episode. Haven't gotten far, but oh my goodness, I may have a brain aneurysm. That's really good. Oh wow, Okay, okay, so they also connect to my Journey, my episode I did on Journey, So okay, right, So they did some a lot of other things. But thank you to him for taking the time to email and say congratulations. But that is funny. Yes, the Paula White almost gave me an aneurism too. I don't even need an aneurism. I got enough neurological problems.

28:25 Okay, but. Yeah, so there we go. That's what's going on. I do appreciate that. And again I don't know what it actually means. I don't know. I really don't know what it means. I mean, I can tell everyone, look, we made it to number four. Yay. Does it really mean anything? I have no idea, But I will see if I can log in and change this description and see what else I can do here to clean this up a little bit. See if I can. Add all I got to say? Does the website? Where does the website go? It goes to Theology Central Okay, okay, yeah, all right, so that's good.

29:07 All right, So it goes to Theology Central, Theologycentral dot net, so that's good. It goes to Apple. Hang On goes to Apple, all right, and then it goes to Spotify. Hang On goes to Spotify. Hang On, Spotify is opening? All right, I'm gonna go to the top here. All right, yeah, all right, so everything. Oh we're at four point five stars on Spotify. Wow, fifteen people have given us a star rating on Spotify. We're fifteen, ladies and gentlemen. We keep that up. We'll break one hundred never, okay, but now fifteen is still good.

29:50 So thank you very much for doing that. So yeah, there you have it. I'll see if I can do any work on it today. And well, thank you to those who listen, thank you very much. We appreciate it. Those who download and stream, thank you very much. And yeah, all that that gives me a little bit more encouragement to do something else. So we'll keep working at it and we'll just see. I don't know again, I don't know what it means. It's it's that's the thing we're doing, broadcasting. You don't know what it means? Uh, I guess the main way you can find out is by being all over social media. Then you'll get that feedback, but you know what you're gonna get. You're gonna get a lot of people who hate you. So even as encouraging as it could be, it typically becomes more discouraging. And if you've noticed, I've stopped giving out email. I've stopped all of that just because I just want to be able to broadcast and hopefully stay out of controversy and just just hopefully produce content that will do I guess you know that email.

30:57 I mean, maybe he said it best. If I can find the email, where is it, Maybe he said it best. Theology central. Theology central makes me think about different sides of an issue or passage, even if I don't agree, which is what I like. I do try to make people think. So yeah, I guess that. If that's what I accomplished, then so be it. I don't know if I accomplish anything else. But thank you so very much to everyone who listens, everyone who financially supports. Thank you so very much. To everyone who encourages. Thank you so very much. Most importantly, for every listen, every stream, every download. Thank you so very much. To anyone who's gone to Spotify or Apple podcast anywhere gave us a five star rating. Thank you so very much. We greatly appreciate it. When I say we, who's the wei.

31:46 There's no one else. Here, It's just me. There's no way to hello hello, there's no one else in the room. There's no one. There's no one, just a bunch of empty coat cans. Mm hmmm. Books. It's it's a it's a total disaster area, right, Okay, thank you for listening. Everyone, have a great day, and we'll get back to regular, regular scheduled programming in our very next episode. Hopefully we'll do something more than just talk about this, but that gives you a little. Insight what's going on behind the scenes. Thanks for listening. Everyone, have a great Friday, a great weekend. God bless