Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Is the church as bad as we think it is? How do we navigate conversations around gender roles that we experience in the church today, such as complementarianism versus egalitarianism? And why don't people talk about race as much anymore? Hey, I'm Asher Whitmer with unfeigned Christianity, and I realize it's been a few months since I've released an episode here, and I'm going to dive into all that, some of the behind the scenes that's been going on here. This episode is really just kind of giving a personal update. And so if you'd like to hear where things are at, where things are going, then stick with me. This episode won't take a ton of your time, but I would love to hear some feedback from you, specifically if you are a regular listener of unveigned Christianity, because there's been a lot of things that I've been kind of reevaluating. Rethinking. What does this podcast, the blog, and all the content and work that I do, content I create and the work that I do through unfained Christianity, what does that look like going forward? And so if you are a regular listener or reader and you have some thoughts, some ideas, some things you'd like to see, I'd love to hear your feedback. So stick around to the end of this.
[00:01:35] So, as you know, obviously, I mean, maybe you've clicked on this episode and you're like, oh, Asher updated and you didn't realize how long it's been, but it's been a solid.
[00:01:46] I think the last episode I released was the middle of August, and I'm currently recording this. The middle. It's November. I was going to say January 9. It's November 9 right now. So it's been at least three months, close to three months since I've released an episode. What's Crazy? The episode I released was recorded in May, so it's been even longer ago that I recorded episodes. I believe I recorded some episodes in June that I published before that last episode. But, yeah, it's been a crazy year. I started, I think the beginning of 23 was one of the most prolific seasons, although I think I usually start the year fairly well. And then it kind of dwindles away as the year progresses. And some of that is because in 2021, our family took a major trip in the summer, and so a lot of content, podcasts and everything kind of came to a halt in 2022. We moved in the summer, and so that kind of naturally brought a lot of things to a halt. And then in 2023, some other things took place. And that's what I'm going to tell you about here.
[00:03:04] Probably the biggest thing, just to be entirely straightforward, is that what I like to do is have, if I'm recording an interview with somebody that week, I'm releasing an episode that I had recorded at least two to three weeks before. So kind of to keep a cycle, to keep content coming, particularly the podcast content, keep that coming two to three weeks in advance. I think at one point I was close to five or six weeks out. And for the most part, I don't think I've ever done more than an episode a week. Sometimes I stretch them out to every other episode. Anyways, come the end of May, I think I had reached out to like five or six different people, wasn't hearing back from them, was hopeful. A couple of them I was maybe in some conversation with. And then in June, boom. Either some of them came back and said, no, they can't do an episode right now. Some of them just kind of dropped off and didn't respond, at least for a couple of months. And I kind of was left in alert. And my June was actually pretty full this year as well. So May I was wrapping up some Bible college stuff, assignments, and then June hits. The beginning of June, we recorded the live free video series. And so that hit. And then I had a couple of personal trips, we had a family trip, and July was pretty busy with having some company and then some other things kind of compounded. Next thing I knew, I was in the middle of August, and I had like, nobody lined up and used up all the episodes that I had recorded ahead of time. So that was kind of the natural thing that slowed us down, is I just didn't stay on top of when some of my leads for guests turned me down or at least delayed it said they can't come on right now. I didn't stay on top of reaching out to other people. And so it's been really nice because my brother in law, Jaron Burkholder, does a lot of the editing. He's made it possible for me to do a lot of content production with unfamed Christianity, but can't produce anything if I don't have guests to interview. So that was kind of maybe the surface level thing that slowed things down. But to be honest with you, and this feels fairly vulnerable for me to share, but probably one of the biggest reasons is we as a family went through a little bit of a. Well, not a little bit, a pretty major financial Cris this summer and just kind of came to a head of realizing I actually need to bring in more consistent income than we have for a number of years now.
[00:05:52] Finances is one of those things that someday I'm going to do something about a podcast series or blog series or something, because I have a lot of thoughts about it. I don't at all feel like I'm an expert at finances, and so I have friends and people in my life who I'm trying to learn a lot from right now. I've grown up in a family that my dad was a pastor and then we moved to LA and so involved in ministry and my wife kind of grew up in a similar family and we have lived that type of life as well. Where we are, the majority of our time is being spent doing stuff that doesn't bring in money.
[00:06:36] Maybe it's specific ministry, maybe it's volunteer teaching school, maybe it's a variety of things. Maybe it's producing content like this that for the amount of time that goes into it, doesn't actually recoup the same amount of money that a regular job would. And when you have some savings or for a large part of life, I've had, I guess you'd call a solopreneur, kind of this side business that I'm running that can fund a lot of our stuff. In LA. For a number of years, I did Handyman work, and so I would spend anywhere between 18 to 24 hours a week doing handyman work and that would supplement and then through the blog and different resources that I developed, like enough manages to come in that that would provide for my family. And then I was also spending a good 15 to 20 hours in Bible college. And then we were doing a number of other things, usually in the evenings and stuff on weekends, different types of ministry activities, kids clubs, Bible studies, and different things like that.
[00:07:50] So that's just kind of been our life. And so thinking about finances and taking seriously a steady flow of income, if anything, I've maybe downplayed it. I know in my youth as like an 1820, 1920 year old, I would have espoused that it's almost carnal to think of how you're doing financially. Just seek first the kingdom of God and don't worry about the finances. Well, I still absolutely believe that we are to seek first the kingdom of God. I just disagree that just because you're also in business, that you also spend your time working, doing stuff that earns you money, doesn't mean you're not seeking first the kingdom of God. And that particularly the stage of family that I'm in, young family, children.
[00:08:48] Things aren't getting cheaper right now. I've got my first teenager three years away, and all kinds of things are going to open up in the next three to ten years of opportunities to spend money and take care of my family. We're having our fifth child. Good grief. I think a little bit here. We've been expecting it for eight months now, and I'm still like four or five. No, it's five. Five child. Okay. Some of you are way beyond that. But yeah, we're just looking at a growing family. We have ten down to three, and then we're going to have a newborn here next month sometime, Lord willing. So looking forward to that. But I would just say that this past summer especially, but even starting maybe in the last year or so, actually, to be honest with you, starting a couple of years ago, it's just I didn't get serious about it until kind of hitting rock bottom. Just the reality that a way of serving my family is to produce steady income. And I've always been able to smooth things over, as it were, because I would run some courses or release some sort of resource that brings in enough income to kind of justify the next six months focusing on content creation or whatever. Well, this summer I had a number of projects that did not turn out as well financially as I had anticipated. And to my shame, we planned things over the summer expecting that a project that was to be released later on would come to fruition.
[00:10:39] And then it did not come to fruition. It's just very foolish way of planning for things financially, first of all. And so that's been kind of a humbling experience.
[00:10:48] But it made me come to grips with the reality that I need to just find a full time job and then some of these other things. I don't know if one day I can be a full time podcaster and author or something like, if God allows that, then that would be amazing. That would be wonderful, right? But for the sake of my family, finding a full time job now, just a little bit of a backstory. The beginning of 2022, I started full time doing marketing consulting, copywriting. Not like legal copywriting, but as in writing copy, specifically specializing in direct response copywriting. I think I've mentioned it maybe time or two before here, and one of my dreams would be to develop a larger brand or company around helping and equipping people, and particularly those who maybe don't have the funds to hire a marketing agency of their own. So whether it's a small business or even nonprofit organizations or specifically, I would love to help authors and aspiring authors, because even though I do not make enough as an author to fully support my family, I do make enough. And a lot of you are a part of this, that I can take, at minimum, four to 5 hours out of my work week to spend recording podcast episodes or focusing on book projects and stuff like that. And so helping aspiring authors or people who want to do more writing or something like that, like helping them establish good, maybe writing, but even more specifically kind of marketing aspect.
[00:12:37] I've gone through some training around marketing, and particularly around using words to get people to engage in your service, your product, your message, whatever. So that was kind of my dream, the beginning of 2022, is to develop that and be like, that would be my side instead of handyman work. Now I've got this marketing thing on the side, and I didn't develop that. And quite frankly, I didn't have enough money saved up to focus entirely on that and grow that to a place where it's. So I was doing all these side gigs trying to stay on top of that. And in the process, I realized I stink at being the creative and the project manager and the marketer, like all in one.
[00:13:20] And so it just kind of came to the realization that I think it would just be best for me just to get a full time job. So right now I'm working full time for a marketing agency. And so that's a solid 40 hours a week is going to work.
[00:13:37] I'm still working here in this office, the same place that I record these podcasts.
[00:13:43] So that's a huge blessing. Just the ability to work from home and the financial stability already in three months now has made a world of difference. But that's literally like kind of the raw behind the scenes of why did Asher quit producing so is I had just quite frankly overextended myself in the amount of time I was putting into creating stuff like this, particularly out of my work week hours, and just kind of came to realize, no, I got to make some money. And so I share all that just to kind of give an update. But kind of with that, I am blessed. We are blessed to have over 120. I think it's like 125. It fluctuates between 100 and 2530 people who are members on Patreon of unfained Christianity. And that is the number one way of supporting this work. And you can become a member for $10 a month if you're a member for $25 a month, then you get full access to everything, all our courses and stuff. You can also purchase the finding my place in God story course as a one time fee for $199. I think it is right Now.
[00:15:04] All of that, if you appreciate the work and you want to see it continue, then purchasing the membership, purchasing some of those products, that enables me to spend more time doing it. Now, I don't want you paying for that if you don't need it, first of all. But then I forget what else I was going to say. If you don't need it.
[00:15:32] I think I was just going to say, I really value creating value for people. I hesitate to be like, oh, give to this effort. And then it's like this constant support, but then there's not much value being given. And so I do have a number of people who are members on Patreon just because they want to support the work, and that means the world to me. But I do genuinely want it to be something that is valuable to you, so don't feel pressured to support it.
[00:16:08] If there's something that like, hey, you would really like to see something produced around this idea, like send it to me, I would love whether that's me by myself or we create a team to pursue developing resources content around it, that could be in place as well. So what I'm saying, having said that, this is not a pitch about becoming a member of unfained Christianity. Rather, it's just an update of the fact that I took on a full time job. And so now all of this is literally squeaking into the margins of life.
[00:16:51] Kind of. With that, I am still wrapping up. Hopefully in a year, I will have graduated, but I'm still in Bible college with my bachelor's of biblical and cultural exegesis. It's kind of fun to say because when I first started, it was just called a bachelor's of biblical studies. And more recently, they changed it. They have a bachelor's of biblical studies tracked, but we were already who were part of the old Bachelor of Biblical Studies tracked. We were also doing a lot of historical and cultural studies as well. And so they changed it to a bachelor's of biblical and cultural exegesis. And kind of sounds kind of fun. But all that to say, after I started it in January of 2018, we're coming up on, at the end of this semester, it will be six years.
[00:17:42] That's crazy. I can't believe it. But after this semester, I think I mostly have my gen EDs to complete, and then I will have the bachelor's. And so I'm still doing that. That takes a good chunk of my week as well. And this fall, I've also been teaching middle school Bible at the local Christian school here and really enjoying that. But of course, with that comes added responsibilities and added roles. Now, the thing that's really fun about the current stage of life, and you're going to see it a little bit, you haven't seen it because it's in the middle of production. But what I'm studying in college easily maps on to what I'm studying or, I'm sorry, what I'm teaching in the middle school. And this year specifically, like some of my earlier college years, it's like most of the people are not going to be that thrilled about what I'm studying or whatever. But this year I'm taking a worldview and apologetics class, and we're tasked with the assignment of a media analysis. Actually, we have, I think it's three media analysis by the end of the semester that we're supposed to have done. And so to watch movies and then analyze what is the worldview message that's coming through in this movie. So there's a bunch of fun movies. I had zero interest in watching the Barbie movie and kind of analyzing that, but after that came out and seeing a bunch of people kind of talk about it, I'm like, oh, maybe I should watch the Barbie movie and analyze that.
[00:19:23] And some other was, I was trying to think. There was another one that I was thinking about, oh, I'm in an argumentative essay class. And so with everything that's going on in Israel right now and just kind of some of the views around eschatology and some of the popular speakers and preachers out there about what's going on, mapping on how this is fulfilling end times thing, part of one of my assignments is to take a common perspective and present an alternative perspective. And that's a part of my argumentative essay. And I was like, oh, that would be a really good topic to do that on, is like present a different view of eschatology. And so you'll probably see whether I'm going to have to have them done for college before the end of the semester, which is the middle of December. So either I'll release them in the next month or so, or the beginning of 24 sometime. But those kinds of things are fun because it's like project stacking, right? I can do it for my Bible college assignment. It's content for unfamed Christianity, for the blog. And not only that, I'm teaching Bible with kind of an emphasis on worldview. Now it's for middle schoolers, so it's a totally different age group, but there's a lot that I can kind of pull out of what I'm already studying and just kind of bring it down to them. And so there's no way I could do all of this if I'm not able to cohesively blend everything that I'm learning, because it is a lot of time. The other thing is that last spring I began serving on the leadership team of our local church here in Canyon City, Colorado. And so that has also added on an extra element of responsibility. And there's been a ton of stuff that we've been processing through as a church that has taken up a lot of my kind of brain time and even being called into edit documents and stuff as we sort through our statement of faith and all that.
[00:21:42] So that's just kind of an update on why did Asher kind of drop off the face of the earth. Now, my guess is that like 98% of you haven't even noticed that Asher hasn't really produced much content.
[00:21:58] And then the other one and a half percent are probably glad that Asher is not producing any more content or whatever. I don't know. But I just wanted to give you an update, particularly because a lot of you are members of unfained Christianity. And so this is kind of where things are at now.
[00:22:19] Here's the thing, though, and here's what's been kind of frustrating about the last few months, is I have not stopped.
[00:22:29] I used to put in anywhere between ten to 15 hours a week with unfamed Christianity, that scaled way back to, at the most it's about five. It's probably more realistically, about 3 hours a week into unfained Christianity stuff. So that slows down, obviously, how much writing I can do, how much podcasting I can do. But what I have been working on are two projects that aren't visible right now. One is the live free video series. So since basically I got the videos, I think it was the end of the beginning of July. And so then I took a couple of weeks, kind of watched through some of them, and gave some feedback. And so August, September, and October, we've gone through the editing phase of those videos now. I was hoping to have it released on the 1 November. I was hoping to kind of do a similar thing as I did with the book where I had a launch team and there's like 25, 30 people who are helping to publicize the book.
[00:23:39] When I invited people to join the launch team. There were only three people that signed up. So I decided, well, maybe instead of like, this big launch, I'll just get it uploaded to the website.
[00:23:51] Get it. This is the thing about being self published, is you're kind of doing it for the most part on your own. Now, I do want to be very clear.
[00:24:01] I did not shoot the video. I did not edit the video. Like, there's a ton of stuff that some other people have done behind the scenes. I'll give a shout out to my friend Kevin Neisley. He's been the huge kind of the originating kind of thrust behind it, and then he did all the shooting, and then his team did the editing and so forth. And you'll learn more about that as you see it. But over the next few weeks, you'll see information about that coming out. I'm excited to get that launched. Probably the beginning of the year in 2024, we will do a more official launch. But here's the thing is, for the next couple of months, you will be able to get access to that at the cheapest possible price. Like, it will never be as cheap and it'll be a lifetime access. So that's a little plug here. Yes, I'm doing some marketing here, but just as a heads up, stay tuned. It's not open yet. We're getting it oPen. We're getting it uploaded to the course platform.
[00:25:08] There's some other, the workbook getting that finalized and good so that it's decent quality for when you download it, print it out or whatever.
[00:25:17] There's also some other additional resources and kind of facilitator instructional videos and stuff that I've been recording and we're editing and working on. So we'll get all that wrapped up here, uploaded, and then people will be able to receive access to that at the lowest cost.
[00:25:38] So stay tuned for that. But that's exciting. That's been something that I've been spending my time working on. Another thing is I believe it was the beginning of 22.
[00:25:50] I started releasing. I started the project in the summer of 2021, a book project called Unfolding Faith. And in 2022, I believe it was January or February, I started releasing some of what I had been working on and writing to my members on Patreon. And there are about two or three chapters of that book project that I'm in the middle of that I either haven't had the time to finish or a couple of the chapters just realize that it's stuff that the story is still kind of live. And basically, just to be entirely transparent, like this is unfolding faith. I had some people, as I was talking about, they were like, are you talking about your faith, like, unraveling? And it's like, no, that's not what I mean at all. By unfolding faith, rather, I'm pulling this from, my wife used to have a blog called the Unfolding. And the thought behind it was, she's just going to write about things as life unfolds. Right? So you can kind of, obviously, if you're taking a trip or something, you have a destination, you're going to go there and you're going to get there. And if you get there in the allotted time that you wanted to take to get there, things go as planned, and that's exactly what you plan, right. But every journey, even when you plan for it, it always just kind of unfolds in a way that you maybe didn't see. Exactly. And that's a lot how life is. Why I'm taking that concept and saying, that's actually how my faith journey has been, is there were these expectations or these thoughts, and as I grow up or as I enter new spaces, new realm of responsibility, new experiences, my faith has changed. As life is unfold or as my faith unfolds in new territories, there's new things that lie ahead. And so it's a bit of a memoir, I guess you could say, of my life as a believer of Jesus, a follower of Jesus up until, at the current time, I'm 32 years old. So I don't know when I'll finish the book for sure. But that's something that I've been picking back up, and I'm releasing them in snippets as deep dive essays to the members at unfamed Christianity. But that is something that I intend to, particularly after getting the live free video series launched and live, that I will transition a lot of my focus to that. So just to give you somewhat of an idea here, I'd like to run through kind of the working outline that I have for it. It starts with a preface, and it was just one night kind of hitting.
[00:28:41] I don't know, it was probably like the most romantic.
[00:28:47] Sometimes you think of starting a book and you just have all these romantic thoughts. And I don't mean romantic as in romance and love and all that, but just like very idyllic and maybe music playing in the background and feelings and thoughts and things are just coming fluidly to your heart and mind, and you're just writing it out, writing the preface was probably the closest thing that I've gotten. Most of my writing experience is, like, hammering it out early in the morning before I start the more major work in my life, or late at night or maybe in the middle of the night when I can't sleep, and I'm just got my PJs on, and I just scramble out and I just punch down the words. And then a few days later, when I come back to them, like, what did you say? I don't get what was I saying? And so that's kind of how most of my writing happens. But this was just like, really, it was just in a moment of, there was a mixture of tears, a mixture of just also excitement, because I was feeling the ability to articulate things that I've kind of wrestled with internally for a long time.
[00:29:57] And just the concept and what the preface kind of pulls away the thought at is, what if we stripped away the religious supports that hold our spiritual costumes?
[00:30:10] And that's just kind of the preface. This kind of deep dive faith unfolds just as life unfolds. And I actually have the preface, prologue, introduction, whatever you want to call it. I have that published on Patreon for my members right now.
[00:30:29] So that piece is already done. Part one, I think I have on there as well, discovering the mannequin behind the costume. So the idea is that we present or we have this expectation of how Christian faith is supposed to look and what it's supposed to look like, and that's kind of the costume, and it's like discovering the mannequin and this idea of a bit of a fake self or a fake being. And so chapter one just interacts with this idea. Is deconstruction destructive? Now, that's kind of the. Especially back in 2021, that was a hot button topic and just kind of interacting with. In what ways is it destructive, and why might it be valuable to be willing to deconstruct some things? And then chapter two goes into my journey of depression. And quite frankly, that was kind of when I realized I was depressed. That's when I began to kind of put a lot of threads together in my life, realizing that there are certain expectations I had about life and about following Jesus that weren't quite matching my human experience.
[00:31:34] That's just kind of the simple story. There's going to be a whole chapter on I am depressed.
[00:31:40] Chapter Three kind of is the presenting problem, if you're familiar with kind of counsel or terminology and so forth. That is when church doesn't work. And this is the chapter that I'm stuck on, to be honest with you, because there's a few things it's like, first of all, it's gotten a lot longer than I anticipated this chapter would. And so I need to kind of figure out, okay, is there like, actually two different chapters here? What's going on? But there's a lot of stuff that's difficult to talk about your church experience, especially when the churches you've been a part of are still, like, they still have their journey going on. Right. And so how do you honor that journey, whether or not you're still a part of it and yet also interact with the lessons and the things that you've been learning in the part of that larger church journey where you were involved with?
[00:32:41] So that's one that's kind of difficult. Chapter Four is goodbye, mom, which I would say was like the second presenting problem that led to a certain level of depression and just kind of realizing expectations I had about God, about faith that weren't quite being met.
[00:33:08] Chapter Five is the first chapter in part two. Part two is called Dry Bones Coming Alive. Just the image of in Ezekiel, I believe, where the dry bones come to life.
[00:33:21] And chapter five is called How We Misread the Bible. And basically that's just kind of a memoir analyzing how I used to understand the Bible and then how I've learned to read the Bible more recently. And yes, through Bible college, largely, I think I've talked about it, I've written about it some, but this is going to be a little more of a deep dive and specifically some dogma around certain ways of reading the Bible that I actually am increasingly convinced produced the exact opposite responses as people were hoping for.
[00:34:00] Chapter Six is why they called it good news and just interacting with the Gospel and what all the implications that it has on life, period.
[00:34:12] Chapter seven is Jesus.
[00:34:14] And this is obviously like why they call it good news is more like how it changes our lives, because sometimes the Gospel is all focused on what's done to us as opposed to now, what does that mean about how we live?
[00:34:31] And chapter seven is the focus on Jesus. A healthier perspective of Scripture and proper understanding of the Gospel led me to a Jesus I never knew before. And that's Philip Yancey's book, right? The Jesus I never knew. But just rediscovering Jesus as I learned to read the Bible in a healthier way, as I had a fuller understanding of what the Gospel is, I never knew this Jesus. Sorry, I'm just kind of reading some notes that I have written down. I haven't written these chapters yet necessarily, but I can struggle to stay close to him going forward and understand why others do as well. I never knew this Jesus before and rarely see him around me today. And so just some of the ways in which the church actually takes on a posture that doesn't necessarily resemble Jesus.
[00:35:32] Part three is processing life as my faith continues to unfold. Chapter eight gets into what does Paul actually mean by all things work together for good? And this is really, I don't know, I'm flirting with taking this chapter out because I'm not sure if it fits exactly in everything that I'm looking at in the book as a whole. But what do you make of tragedy? What do you make of God? Like, what is God's will?
[00:36:02] Even the first fruits of the spirit grown inwardly, we are waiting for, redeemed, for redemption. And the suffering we face today is bringing that about.
[00:36:16] So just kind of some interaction, going through some painful experiences and hearing Romans 828 quoted a lot, kind of, in many ways, I think people who didn't know what else to say kind of quoted it, and quite frankly, I think we misuse it out of context. But then even, what does it mean that God works all things together for good, right? Because that doesn't necessarily mean that everything has a purpose. And sometimes we communicate that message like everything happens for a reason.
[00:36:49] Well, I guess you could say everything happens for a reason. Maybe it's not a good or positive reason all the time. Anyways, I don't know if we'll leave that chapter in or not. It's some things that I've been processing through, I think I've written some about. But then chapter nine, does this look like Jesus? And this is just kind of looking at certain things that the church allows or makes space for, things like justice, white supremacy, Christian nationaLism, our view of power, and how we understand headship and authority and leadership. And just kind of. This is a bit of an unpacking a bunch of stuff that are either cultural norms or just kind of normative that we've allowed in the Church. And like, hey, is actually the way we're living, re embodying and resembling Jesus. Chapter Ten is creating space for nuance. And this is just like diving into exegetical, an exegetical look at one Corinthians eleven, divorce and remarriage, sexuality and gender, science, et cetera, the gender roles and egalitarianism and complementarianism and all that, kind of diving into some of the different Christian views on those things. And then after that, would be the epilogue. So that's a project I'm looking forward to sharing with you all. Sharing more, diving into a little bit further.
[00:38:10] But here's the question that I have for you guys, and then I'm going to let you go. I actually didn't necessarily want this to get much more than 30 minutes, but my question is, what would you like to see more of through the podcast and through the blog? Obviously, my goal is there are interests and passions of mine, and there are needs of the church, needs you guys feel topics and interests that you guys have. And where I see me serving you all is where the two overlap, if you think of a Ven diagram, like the circles or whatever. And so what topics are you interested in? What issues are you interested in? Maybe it's something new that I've not talked about before, maybe it's something I've done before, but you'd love to hear more discussion on it or expound. Maybe you have a question that was brought up and you'd like me to address it more specifically, or bring a guest on to interact with the question or something. And then even the idea around guests, like, do you have suggestions for people to interview? That would be one question I've received. In the last three months. I have received about five or six emails from publicists. Now, a publicist is when you go through traditional publishing, an author writes something, he gets an agent to present it to the publisher. The publisher decides whether or not they're going to take on the book. If they do take on the book, then they have a whole team, they have an editorial team, they have a design team, everything team. And one of the aspects of that team is the publicization of the work, right? And the publicists. So these are publicists from publishing houses who have authors who've just recently come out with books and they've reached out to unfained Christianity about bringing that author on to promote the book.
[00:40:11] My initial response is like, I don't know these people. I don't know these authors. But then I started seeing some titles that were like, this is actually interesting. It genuinely interested me, and it overlapped with topics that we've looked at on the podcast before that I think would be relevant to my audience. And so I began to wonder, should I read the book and see, like, hey, maybe this person should come on. Are you guys interested in that? Or if it's somebody that I don't really know, you don't really know, you don't really care, that doesn't interest you. I'd love to hear some feedback about that, even the format. Like what format do you like audio video written? To be honest with you, I've observed that I have three different audiences. Some read my stuff, some watch the videos, some listen to my stuff, and there's a little bit of overlap, but it's usually kind of three distinct different things. So my guess is that I will try to create with the help of AI and transcription services and stuff like that. I can do that a lot more easily without a whole ton of extra time being put into it. But I'll probably create, if I do a written piece, I'll create some audio video content around that. If I do a podcast, I'll probably try to create a written version of that as well. But I would love to know what format do you prefer also, even just like, do you prefer essay type stuff, whether that's an audio essay or a written essay. Do you prefer the interview kind of conversational style? Do you prefer me, like, reviewing something? So here's a book or a resource, and you would like me to kind of interact with it and review it back and forth.
[00:41:53] Those are all things that I would love feedback on what your take is, but here's what I plan on going forward. So I'm in the middle of kind of restocking my leads for podcast guests. Some of the ones that had told me this summer, no, they couldn't do it. I'm reaching back out to them to see if they can do it now, now that we're heading into the holidays, right? They should have a little more time to talk to Asher.
[00:42:23] I don't know. It'll probably be stuff that happens after the new year, but I'm just kind of reopening those bags and reaching out to things, to people. But there are some topics that have kind of been storing up within me over the last seven, eight months that I'm going to do some short podcast episodes, kind of audio essay type stuff, perhaps. Now, I'm not saying like, I'll read it. I'm going to talk with it and present it. And I value your feedback and input and stuff. But some of this stuff is just like observing that the church actually isn't as bad. We're braced for things that is not quite as bad as we think it is sometimes. And there can be a lot of negativity around the church. And this is coming from a very personal experience I'm going to share, stepping into a new area that I had some preconceived ideas about and then discovering as I began talking with people, it's like, oh, actually, when you say the church, as in like real people and you have conversations with them and stuff, it's not necessarily as bad as I thought it was. Right?
[00:43:29] But then there's also questions around the whole gender role conversation, egalitarian complementarianism. I've been processing some things around that that I would like. I'm going to have some episodes addressing that as well. And then more recently, I was on a call with some friends and some people who we had done some work with.
[00:43:53] I've promoted restorative faith before on this podcast. This podcast is a part of a network of people in the restorative faith community. And just having conversations about race and racism within the church in a way that kind of builds unity and drawing us closer to the vision that Jesus gave us. And it was just kind of lamented that. It's almost like people quit talking about race and people quit caring about. It's almost, yeah, if you do try to talk about it, do try to bring it up, people just kind of brush it over as though they're tired of it. And it's not like anything has gotten that terribly better. And so I have an episode with some thoughts around that, an essay that I would like to present. So that's some of the stuff coming forward. I would love to know specifically, like what would you like to see and how can I begin to kind of blend the two of interest, passion, experience, knowledge, expertise with the need that you feel now? Maybe it's something you feel personally, or maybe it's something you see in the church around.
[00:45:09] Share those responses either in the comments directly. Message me. Email me. I would love to hear your feedback.
[00:45:17] Also, I have some pretty cool things to promote as far as advertising, but I'll leave that for down the road. You'll have to come back to the next episode if you want to find a really cool way to start stashing money for travel. I'll tell you about that in the next episode. There's a hook.
[00:45:37] Anyways, thank you guys for sticking with me, and that's a little bit of an update where we're at. Thank you, guys. God bless.
