Why We Love Podcasting (Conversation with Greg Moore of the DMW Podcast)

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00:13

Welcome back to Conversations with a Calvinist.

00:16

My name is Keith Foskey, and I am a Calvinist.

00:19

And I am joined today by Greg Moore of the Dead Men Walking Podcast.

00:25

Greg, how are you doing today? Good, Keith.

00:27

Thanks for having me on.

00:29

Absolutely.

00:30

And I was recently a guest on your show.

00:32

We had the opportunity to talk about comedy and comedians and people that we love that make us laugh.

00:38

Well, today I've asked you to come on the show to talk about something that you're passionate about and I am too, and that is the subject of podcasting.

00:48

Recently, you posted on your social media page that the Dead Men Walking Podcast had reached, was it the top 150 of Christian podcasts? Tell me about that.

01:02

Yeah, just this week.

01:03

And you know what? I think it might have something to do with you.

01:06

You were a guest just two weeks ago.

01:10

So maybe we rode the Keith train into the top 150, but look, I never started this to get into any rankings or to make a bunch of money or anything like that.

01:23

Started really just as a passion to talk about God.

01:28

And through that, we've had a lot of people share the podcast and because of our great guests, we usually have a guest on every week, not every week, but just about every week.

01:38

And I think they bring a lot of value to the listeners, including yourself, that was just on two weeks ago.

01:42

So anyone listening to this, go listen to Keith over at Dead Men Walking Podcast.

01:46

It was really fun.

01:48

Awesome, awesome.

01:49

And I have to mention, you mentioned you want to talk about that this was about talking about God.

01:54

And I just have to say, you're one of my many beloved Presbyterian friends and I dressed up for you today.

02:05

So those people who are listening to this, who are not watching this, don't realize that I came fully out of that.

02:14

I'm wearing my Presbyterian outfit.

02:17

For those who watch my little short videos, this is the Presbyterian.

02:21

It's my wife's most favorite.

02:23

I have to say, first of all, you look great.

02:26

Second of all, I'm a little disturbed that essentially Doug Wilson just stole the template for what a Presbyterian is supposed to look like, the sweater vest and the bow tie and the collared shirt.

02:38

It's funny, when I watch your videos, usually when you dress as the big Eva guy, that looks like how I dress.

02:44

And I go, uh-oh, what's going on? And I need to change my style up here.

02:49

Every once in a while, I put on a suit jacket though, but I work for myself and it's just hard to, I don't know, get those sweater vests on and those suits on during the week when you can kind of dress however you want.

03:00

So I got a pretty relaxed look, but man, you look sharp.

03:03

I appreciate it.

03:04

Well, you make me laugh when you talk about Doug Wilson because there is a picture of you and I floating around the internet where you are in a red, well, it was like a crushed velvet blazer.

03:17

And I am in my Doug Wilson sweater vest and it says Harbor Freight version of Jeff Durbin and Doug Wilson, you're the...

03:29

So you put, so first of all, you put the Harbor Freight on there and it was so perfect.

03:34

I have a Harbor Freight about five miles away from my house.

03:37

It is a running joke with my construction friends how it's kind of like, yeah, I just need a quick tool.

03:42

It's not exactly, you know, you don't go there for quality.

03:45

And it's like a couple of, that really, that picture blew up and a couple of people were like, what's a Harbor Freight? The people in the Midwest that know Harbor Freight, they loved that meme that you made because it's like, it totally is, you know, and it's a little self-deprecating, which is fine.

03:59

And like I said, you put me in the same conversation as Jeff Durbin anywhere.

04:02

I'll gladly be a Harbor Freight Jeff Durbin and I'm sure you'd be a Harbor Freight Doug Wilson any day of the week.

04:08

So that was funny.

04:09

Absolutely.

04:10

And that reminds me of something else I wanna mention on today's show.

04:14

We are going to be giving away a copy of the London Baptist Confession of Faith.

04:21

This is a new exposition of the London Baptist Confession of Faith.

04:25

And what made me think about it was whenever I just posted a quiz about Calvinism and the quiz about Calvinism, it called the 1689, the Walmart version of the Westminster Confession.

04:40

So here's- Clearly by a Presbyterian, that meme.

04:44

Yes.

04:44

So here's how you enter to get this copy, this book, which was donated by a listener, by the way, and we thank you for that.

04:52

This is a copy of the new exposition of the London Baptist Confession of Faith.

04:55

If you want to have this, if you wanna be entered in for the drawing, go to our YouTube comments and make your best joke about the Doug Wilson and Jeff Durbin picture.

05:08

I'll post it in the video, so you'll get to see it.

05:11

You'll see me and Greg dressed in our outfits.

05:17

And I want you to see if you can make a better meme.

05:19

Make a better meme.

05:20

That'll be the way that we give this away.

05:23

If you can give your joke, and you don't have to have the best joke, just make a joke in the comments and I will enter you in.

05:30

And next week's show, I will draw a name from that list and make sure that whoever gets it, gets it sent directly to them.

05:39

And I wanna thank again the listener who gave us that copy of the 1689.

05:44

Now see, I just have the pocket version sitting on my shelf behind me here.

05:49

I don't have a full version like that where it's a hard cover.

05:54

I might have to make a meme because I might wanna copy that.

05:57

We joke about the confessions, but I mean, we stand on shoulders of giants when it comes to something like the 1689 confession, the Westminster.

06:05

I mean, those are creeds and confessions that are just so important to our faith.

06:09

So by no means by people listening and us joking about that meme saying it's the Walmart, it isn't.

06:15

Man, it is the standard of confession.

06:17

So someone's gonna get a really good book.

06:20

Yeah, absolutely.

06:21

And again, I am very appreciative of listeners who continue to send me stuff to give away.

06:27

He sent me a copy to keep too.

06:29

So I have one for myself and I have one to give away.

06:32

So definitely if you're interested, go on to the comment section, leave a joke and I'll have the picture posted so that you'll know what you're making the joke about.

06:43

All right, so moving on though, you mentioned a minute ago, just getting into this for the purpose of making God known.

06:50

And I do want you to go back for our listeners, for those who may not know of the Deadman Walking podcast, tell us how you got started.

06:58

And this is not your main activity.

07:01

You're also, when we met, I was so fascinated to hear you're a county commissioner, you are a real estate mogul, maybe mogul.

07:12

No.

07:13

Tell us about yourself.

07:15

I wish.

07:16

Oh, thanks.

07:16

No, so yeah, the job that pays the bills, I'm a real estate broker.

07:20

I own my brokerage here in Michigan.

07:22

We do real estate in Michigan, Ohio, hopefully Kentucky by the end of this year as well too, residential, commercial, recreational land.

07:31

And also a county commissioner, duly elected since 2016 in Monroe County.

07:36

I've always been interested in politics, helped on some campaigns, was a legislative liaison at our Capitol.

07:41

Always helping with organizations.

07:44

I was just down in Columbus, Ohio with End Abortion Now, where they're putting together an abolition bill.

07:49

So always been interested in that.

07:51

And then that materialized as a local run.

07:53

If I do something more in that, if the Lord wants me to, we'll see.

07:57

But right now, satisfied with being a county commissioner and helping at the local level.

08:01

And then in April of 2020, started this podcast.

08:05

As many people did in the COVID era, the more I talked to people, the more I see, oh, they saw, hey, we're shut down.

08:12

Let's start a podcast.

08:13

I thought I was a little unique in that, but come to find out, no, everyone was thinking that.

08:17

Here in Michigan, the governor deemed realtors non-essential.

08:22

So we were shut down for nine weeks because, hey, people don't need places to live, right? That's not essential.

08:28

Funnily enough, McDonald's still stayed open because everyone needs a double cheeseburger.

08:34

But I digress, you can tell I'm still a little bitter about that.

08:37

I was gonna say, I was gonna amen everyone needing a double cheeseburger.

08:43

Let me tell you my guilty pleasure.

08:46

I do like a McDonald's burger now and then, believe me.

08:49

And I loved hearing your story on your podcast about James White and you bringing him a McDonald's sandwich.

08:57

I was like, okay, if McDonald's is Dr.

09:00

James White's secret pleasure, I don't feel so guilty now.

09:03

I'll go with it.

09:04

But anyway, I was talking to my wife and she goes, you know, you were shut down for a little bit.

09:09

You've always been, you love discussing the things of God, theology, politics, culture, those things.

09:14

You should talk about it on a podcast.

09:16

And at the time a brother in the Lord of mine was living five houses down, Jason Hamlin.

09:21

I have to give him a shout out.

09:22

He was with the podcast for almost full two years weekly coming over here and recording multiple episodes a week.

09:29

He stepped away from the podcast.

09:31

He might be back in the future, we'll see.

09:33

But give him a shout out.

09:35

So him and I just sat down in my little studio out here and we started discussing the things of God.

09:39

And right from the beginning, we had a couple of people really help us out.

09:44

CrossPolitik out there in Moscow, Idaho was very supportive.

09:47

Doug Wilson was very supportive, came on early.

09:50

And as you know, in the podcasting world, it's not all about names, but when you get someone with a little bit bigger of a platform to come on and kind of legitimize you, I guess you would say, it was then a little easier to get the James White and the Dale Partridges and the Sam Storms and the Tom Askills of the world to come on and just discuss the things of the Lord.

10:11

And it's not always about getting a name.

10:13

Sometimes we have, you know, many times we have people on that you've never heard of, but that are solid brothers in the Lord.

10:20

And we're discussing anything from theology, doctrine, politics, culture.

10:24

We've had, you know, standup comics on and sports stars and things like that.

10:29

But really what we want to do is we want to glorify God and we want to glorify him by talking of the things of the Bible, how we fight certain things in culture, how Christians are to be in politics.

10:42

And that's basically what we cover.

10:43

We've been going strong since April of 2020.

10:46

So we're, you know, we're in our third year right now.

10:48

That's amazing, brother.

10:50

And it is such an encouraging thing to see going from relatively, you know, relatively unknown in the podcast world to being in the top 150 just in a few years.

11:01

And again, I'm impressed by that.

11:04

I'm encouraged by that.

11:05

It's one of those, it's inspiring to me because again, I'm, you know, a young and growing podcast.

11:11

I started, I guess we started around the same time, but I didn't really get serious about it until, well, I guess about a year ago, I really started taking it seriously and started putting more effort into things like learning how YouTube works, how to get people to actually look at what you're doing.

11:28

And I focused a lot on the video side of it, making it, trying to make it, you know, we put together a studio at our church and things like that to give me a nice looking place to record from.

11:41

And I think it's become somewhat of a ministry arm of the church because we have so many topics that we would never have the time to deal with all these topics in the normal corporate church setting.

11:54

But, and obviously sermons aren't interviews, so it wouldn't make sense to have, you know, these conversations in a sermon, but having these available to our people has become a real blessing.

12:05

Oh, look at, and let me tell you something.

12:08

I appreciate you because I think we need to have a meeting.

12:12

You need to teach me TikTok.

12:14

I, two years ago, I said, I'm not doing another one, man.

12:16

I'm not joining another social media.

12:18

I got too many and boy, did I miss the boat on that.

12:20

I mean, let me just tell you a quick story because you have millions of views on TikTok with your videos and they're funny.

12:28

They're, they poke fun, but there's truth to them.

12:31

And I think they're used to glorify God.

12:33

I was talking to a young brother at my church.

12:35

He's 23 years old.

12:38

And we were discussing some stuff for an upcoming conference this fall that we're putting together at our church.

12:43

And I said something like, well, Vati Bakum.

12:45

And he said, who? And I said, oh, you never heard Vati Bakum? And he has this thing about cultural Marxism.

12:49

And then we moved on and I mentioned someone else, Dale Partridge, who, oh no, he's got this great, right? And then I said, well, I was down in Tullahoma with this gentleman named Keith Boskey.

12:59

And I preferenced it with like this, and he goes, Keith, oh, he does those denominational videos.

13:04

Oh man, he's, right? And he started, and I go, okay.

13:07

So here's this 23 year old brother who I mentioned probably two powerhouses in the faith and he wasn't too familiar, but boy, he knows Keith.

13:15

He knew your church, he knew your videos.

13:16

And I go, wow, man, it just struck me.

13:19

I go, Keith's like affecting this next generation through comedy.

13:23

And this kid, you know, here I'm thinking I needed to kind of preference your name, like he wouldn't know you.

13:28

And that's the one he knew.

13:30

So I love what you're doing.

13:32

You're reaching a younger generation with a lot of filth on TikTok.

13:36

You're doing something that glorifies God and getting millions of views.

13:40

I absolutely love it.

13:41

So it doesn't really matter where we're glorifying God in the podcast realm, on YouTube, on TikTok, use social media for the glory of God wherever you can get it.

13:51

And I think you're doing an awesome job, man.

13:54

Oh, well, I appreciate it.

13:56

I'm humbled by that encouragement.

13:58

And I really, really appreciate that word.

14:03

I wanna talk about a little bit about podcast culture since you mentioned, you know, how social media can be used to glorify God.

14:12

And when we, we both started during COVID, like I said, it was sort of like, okay, there's a need here.

14:20

People want to hear about the things of God.

14:23

People wanna hear good interviews.

14:25

And so where, when you started, where did you draw your influences from? Where did you say, I want my show to be like this show? And maybe you had two or three in your mind or did you just wanna be completely unique or did you have a template that you sort of tried to adopt? So, man, that's a great question.

14:50

No one's really ever asked me that before.

14:52

So in my mind, I had a way that I wanted it to go.

14:55

And then I'm sure as you know, you get on the microphone, you start talking to guests, your weeks go by and you realize, oh, it's harder than you think to stay to either a certain format or to do exactly what you wanna do.

15:07

Because sometimes the shows go where they're gonna go depending on the guests, right? I've always wanted it to be very conversational but I found myself almost becoming more of a question and answer.

15:18

But that's because if you do them over Zoom or StreamYard when they're not in there, it is more of a question and answer.

15:23

When I have someone in the studio, those episodes always go longer because you're just having a conversation with someone.

15:29

I've always been a fan of cross-politic for years just because how they meshed politics and theology together.

15:39

Sword and Trowel is amazing.

15:42

You've got some lesser known ones like mine, like Here I Stand Theology or Matter of Theology with Chris Hough.

15:48

That was very, very encouraging.

15:50

Just Thinking was one.

15:53

I can't, Theology Podcast, where it's just these three guys, sometimes four guys sitting down at a local diner or a local pub and you can hear the clinking in the background.

16:05

C.R.

16:06

Wiley and Glenn Sunshine.

16:08

And these guys are historians, theologians.

16:10

They're talking about anything from medieval theology to Tolkien, to C.S.

16:16

Lewis, to the history of the church.

16:18

Those guys kind of inspired me as well too to go, oh, it doesn't have to be this Joe Rogan-esque type professional studio.

16:28

And we have a little studio here and that's great.

16:31

But at the end of the day, it's about the content, what you're talking about.

16:34

And I know when I listen, I'm a big consumer of podcasts, early adopter, 12, 13 years ago, iTunes University, early adopter of that, that's now defunct.

16:45

But I realized that there needed to be value in what I was saying or what the person was saying when I was listening to her, I would just switch it off.

16:52

If it wasn't edited down to where I was getting content and I was getting it in a timely manner and it was something that was rich and valuable to me, I just went, well, I'll go find something else because there's so many things out there.

17:05

So really from the beginning, I went, I don't want to waste the audience time.

17:09

I don't want to repeat what everyone else says.

17:12

I don't want to repeat too much what I say.

17:14

And believe me, I'm guilty of that because sometimes you feel as the audience grows, you need to reiterate some things, but I try not to too much.

17:21

You want to keep it fresh.

17:22

But really I look at it as the audience time is extremely valuable.

17:27

They've got literally 10 million options when it comes to podcast, TikTok, social media streaming.

17:34

Why would they choose to listen to me? Well, I want to bring value to it.

17:37

Obviously we want to glorify God.

17:38

We want to be biblical, but at the same time, hopefully have some type of unique take or some type of teaching moment in there, either with myself or the guest to where the listener walks away and goes, okay, that was valuable to me.

17:51

I'd like to check in next week and see what they have to say on this subject.

17:55

And that's really the goal to not waste time because time is the most valuable thing we have.

18:01

We have a lot of options when it comes to podcasts.

18:04

And that's kind of what I try to do each week when I'm looking at guests and looking at content and what the questions will be is to make sure that we're bringing value to the listener.

18:14

Amen, amen.

18:15

And that is a lesson that took a while for me to learn.

18:19

As I began to look at the shows that were making a difference and the shows that were just being ignored, it was a lot of the fluff, a lot of the things that just are time wasters that we do.

18:39

And it's funny, it's become, podcasting has become something I've began to study, like study the way people do it, study just what you just said was even useful for me, just thinking about, even now, things that I do that may be wasting people's time.

18:57

People wanna get into it, they wanna get right into the content.

19:01

And I know the one for me that, people may not even think of it as a podcast because it existed before podcast culture, but the one that always influenced me the most was The Dividing Line with James White.

19:17

Because back when I was becoming Reformed, when I was going through my Reformation, my personal Reformation, it was the two shows he did a week, he did a Tuesday and a Thursday show.

19:30

And I look forward to those and I listened to every one of them for years.

19:34

I mean, I had, it was always during the Ergen-Kanner situation where there was that dust up at Liberty University, I remember listening to all of those.

19:44

And so you're right, the reason why I listened to every one of them, now, at this point, my life doesn't allow for me to listen to all that Dr.

19:55

White puts out because he's a prolific content creator.

20:00

And that does lead to the issue where when we have such a saturated market, I mean, honestly, if I would have known two years ago, I would have bought stock in Zoom communications and I would have bought stock in blue microphones, blue Yeti and Rode.

20:24

Think about how many people now own a blue Yeti microphone or who own a Rodecaster or whatever, these things that 10 years ago, nobody even knew what these things were.

20:36

And now they're in everybody's homes.

20:38

You see these microphone boom arms are just, they're everywhere.

20:42

Yeah, same here.

20:44

You know, everybody has one.

20:46

And I remember one time going into a pastor's study and he had one of these boom arms and I thought it was the coolest thing.

20:52

I was like, why do you have this? Oh, I do a little radio show.

20:55

And I was like, you're the coolest guy ever because you have this microphone on an arm.

20:59

You know, and now I've got one like in my office and one at my home.

21:02

And like, it's like this just normal where it wasn't normal 10 years ago.

21:08

So- It's pretty crazy.

21:10

Oh, I'm sorry, go ahead.

21:11

No, no, no, no, please, please, please.

21:13

No, I was just gonna say too, and it gives us no excuses to bring quality content.

21:16

15, 20 years ago, you had to invest tens of thousands of dollars into audio and video equipment.

21:22

You had to have someone run it, right? You had to have, you know, all this training and knowledge.

21:27

Guess what? Now we have a mic, we plug it in.

21:29

You've got, you know, your phone that you can stream on.

21:31

Cool, it takes you four minutes to set up a studio.

21:34

Guess what? Spend that extra time in making sure you're bringing the word of God rightly and you're bringing value to the listener because you don't have any other excuses.

21:43

I'm really a big believer in that.

21:47

You know, and like you said, yeah, I'd love to go back and get some stock in Zoom.

21:51

Good Lord, it's like everyone just went right to Zoom.

21:53

How did Zoom, where was, I didn't get that meeting where Zoom was in there and they're like, listen, for the pandemic, everyone's using Zoom.

22:01

I know we got 19,000 streaming platforms out there.

22:04

It's just, we all went to it.

22:05

That was, what a great turn of events for Zoom.

22:09

Absolutely.

22:09

And just in case there are people out there who are interested in starting a podcast, something that you just said is something that maybe people might be interested in.

22:19

So I'm gonna ask you real quick, what microphone are you using and what is your setup? Just real quick.

22:27

I think some people might be interested in that.

22:29

So I did a little research and I went, I really wanna have four mics because I saw myself going to conferences and having multiple people in studio.

22:37

And I didn't really wanna pay $600 a mic for the Shure mic, right? So we have a place around in the Midwest called Sweetwater and they're in Indiana, they're a national reseller and they have great customer service.

22:51

And I usually don't do advertisements for places, but I can't tell you enough.

22:55

I mean, they check up on you.

22:56

They call you, how you doing, right? You have tech support.

22:59

And I went down there and I was looking at the Rodecaster and I tested out the Rode mics and I went, man, for 99 bucks a mic, I can get four mics and the quality is 95% to the Shure.

23:11

So for me, it was kinda, instead of spending $2,500 on mics, I'd rather spend $400.

23:17

And at that time, the Rodecaster board was, geez, I think it was only like a 799 or something, very inexpensive.

23:27

And it allows me to do things like this.

23:30

60% of the time, it works every time.

23:33

We get those fun sound drops in there.

23:38

But the Rodecaster works 100% of the time, which is good.

23:42

So that was just some random drop I push.

23:45

It's funny that it was that one.

23:46

Oh, actually, I do have a drop of actually Bethel at their last service, prayer service.

23:54

I was like, That was Bill Johnson speaking in tongues, I think.

24:03

So it allows you to do things like that on the fly, right? And so that's really it.

24:10

Just four Rodecaster mics, a Rodecaster Pro.

24:13

It's very mobile.

24:14

You saw me down at the Shattered Substance Conference with it.

24:18

You have your little setup as well too, which I say little, I'm saying it's compact and movable.

24:22

So very easy to do this now.

24:24

And so there's no excuses to be able to bring quality content to people with the tools that the Lord has providentially provided for us to glorify him digitally.

24:34

Absolutely.

24:35

And I mentioned a minute ago, I mentioned Zoom, but a lot of us have moved away from Zoom.

24:40

We've moved to StreamYard.

24:42

And again, this is not an advertisement for StreamYard, but when I find something that I'm using and I'm liking it, and here's just my version of what you just did.

24:50

This is- Knock-a-loo-loo.

24:52

Nuh-uh.

24:53

That's- What was that? Wait, play that again.

24:57

What was that? This is one of my guests who's on the show a lot.

25:01

This is Uncle Rich, and this is him doing Phoebe from Friends.

25:05

Knock-a-loo-loo.

25:06

Nuh-uh.

25:08

And if you see, you see me dying laughing because this is us doing our mic tests and he just does, he does, yeah, Phoebe's funny noise.

25:19

Anyway, so yeah, we all, but that's what's cool about StreamYard is it allows us things.

25:24

And that brings me to something I do wanna, I said earlier, I had a picture I wanted to show you.

25:29

Now this picture is, it's making the rounds on social media.

25:34

A lot of people are using this and they're asking the question like, well, I'll bring it up.

25:39

This is the picture, all right? And some people are saying, what theological position put you in this situation? Or what food do you not like that puts you in this situation? You know, where all the swords are drawn.

25:52

If people are listening to this, they can't see the picture, but it's a guy with all the swords at his throat.

25:57

So I'm gonna ask you this.

25:59

I'm gonna ask you this, in three years of podcasting, what's the one show that you felt like put you in that position where you felt like you were, you know, swords drawn? Did you, have you, have you had one where you got some negative feedback? Yeah.

26:13

Oh man, you know, I was just talking about this actually a few days ago.

26:19

I had a gentleman on, he's really big on Instagram.

26:22

He's a Lutheran.

26:23

And I got so much pushback because they said, why would you have someone on and kind of, I don't wanna say promote, but we got into talking about the Eucharist and what that was, as well as the salvific ramifications of baptism.

26:41

And he believes that you have to be baptized to be saved.

26:44

And he also believes it's the real body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist.

26:48

He's a Lutheran.

26:49

Yeah, those are the Lutheran position.

26:50

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

26:51

And it's so crazy because I'd had, you know, we had had people on and we're arguing about Bethel and Sam Storms.

26:57

I pushed back on him when he's defending Bill Johnson and we had all these things, but that one seemed to really get people upset at me.

27:04

And they said, you didn't make enough of a distinction between true reform like Baptists and Presbyterians and Lutherans.

27:10

And I said, they kind of saw it as like support, you know? And I said, well, look at, I would say, yeah, probably the baptism is a primary doctrine that is a difference.

27:22

And we did discuss that, but that one was the one where, you know, I had someone on and they looked at it as, man, Lutherans are way over there and you shouldn't even have them on the show.

27:34

And that was at the beginning, it was maybe eight, nine months in.

27:37

And maybe that was because it was the first time someone maybe had been on the show that didn't necessarily have the same doctrinal alignment as me or as most of the listeners, but that one definitely did.

27:49

And then I even got some pushback talking about theonomy and not being fully on board.

27:53

I have a really rowdy Presbyterian crowd that follows kind of the Moscow Doug Wilsons out there.

27:59

And they're very, you know, very big into dominion and theology, theonomy and things like that.

28:05

And I just, and I made a statement and said, I'm not on board with that.

28:09

And I think we had those discussions, you and I did personally down in Tennessee and talking about, you know, it's really tough to be covenant theology and then say, well, the covenant of grace doesn't work.

28:21

We need to go back to the covenant of works.

28:23

And that got me some pushback as well too.

28:25

But for the most part, people I think that listen know, I try to be thoughtful about those things.

28:31

And I'm not, you're not listening to this podcast for me.

28:34

I'm not the smartest guy in the room.

28:35

Every time I have a guest on, I'm the second smartest person on the podcast.

28:39

And I try to make it that way on purpose.

28:40

And it's not hard to do because most people are.

28:43

So I'm here to learn too.

28:45

Like I told you, podcasting can become self-serving too.

28:48

I get to sit down and talk to someone for a half hour, an hour, and talk about God and they're smarter than me.

28:54

And they know a lot of things and I learned stuff along the way too.

28:57

So I never come across on the podcast as, this is the final, well, I do sometimes, especially I take that back in politics as well, because I have a little experience in that.

29:08

But I never tried to come across as, you have to listen to me and believe the same way as I do.

29:15

There are core things that we talk about that obviously we believe, but those would probably be the two things that got me the most pushback.

29:22

Yeah, yeah, and when we're talking about God and we're talking about theology, I mean, there's obviously going to be things that we disagree about.

29:30

I mean, you and I could probably make a short list of things that we would disagree about, about secondary matters, things that wouldn't be gospel centered, but things that would define our churches differently.

29:43

I did a show once with Ben Hatch, who was a, he's a pastor.

29:47

It was funny because he was actually on Jeopardy.

29:49

He was a Jeopardy contestant.

29:51

And then he came on my show and we did a show about mid-acts dispensationalism.

29:58

Have you ever heard of that? Mid-acts? I mean, I know like mid-trib.

30:04

What's mid-acts? No, no, no.

30:05

Well, mid-acts dispensationalism says in the middle of the book of Acts, God changes the paradigm of his plan to focus on the Gentiles.

30:15

And the dispensational view there basically says that Paul becomes the establisher of a new system.

30:26

And this new system is the Gentile Christian way.

30:28

And it happens in the middle of the book of Acts.

30:31

And they have a very unique position.

30:34

So Ben had spoken out against it.

30:38

So I had him on to talk about it and my comments.

30:41

And again, this was back when I was getting very little traction in the podcast, but the comment section just exploded with people who were supporting.

30:49

They were the mid-acts pastors.

30:50

They heard that we were talking about them.

30:52

And boy, you talk about the sword being at the throat.

30:55

I felt like this guy really a lot.

31:00

So it's amazing when you just happen to tip toe into somebody else's pond and you just dip your toe into somebody else's pool.

31:09

They go, well, you can't have that.

31:12

Wow.

31:13

So yeah, I didn't know it was called mid-acts.

31:15

I had heard briefly.

31:16

I mean, I've heard of that before just loosely.

31:19

I'm not too familiar with it.

31:21

But man, here's the thing.

31:22

When you get into dispensationalism too, it opens the door for all kinds of weird stuff where you can theorize on.

31:31

And look at, we know some dispensationalists, classic dispensationalists, like I said, secondary issue, but I'll tell you what, some of those things, you go down those roads, you're starting to imply, infer things into the text to fit this tapestry of timeline that you have as a dispensationalist.

31:50

Sometimes I step back and I go, whoa, yeah, that's a little much.

31:54

And I should clarify, I said, I never say this is what you need to believe.

31:58

I'm talking about secondary issues.

32:00

Obviously, Orthodox Christianity, what you and I stand on.

32:04

Yeah, I'll argue those points to the death.

32:07

I'm talking about, I never, the secondary issues, the third issues, I won't get in there and say you have to do this, you have to do that.

32:16

We can disagree on secondary issues and still be brothers and sisters in the Lord, yeah.

32:20

Absolutely, absolutely.

32:22

So I wanna ask you another podcast question because that's our focus today.

32:26

I wanna ask you a question about your favorite non-Christian podcasts.

32:33

And I know that that can be a touchy subject because when you and I did our show together, when you had me on your show, we talked about our favorite non-Christian comedians and there was a little bit of that, that I was a little nervous because I was afraid people might get a little offended if I mentioned some of these guys that I like.

32:54

So I'm just curious what you think about guys who wouldn't necessarily be out there to promote the Lord, but still you think produce quality content.

33:07

Who are some of those guys for you? Oh, I'm probably gonna sound cliche, but I always check into Rogan.

33:16

Once in a while, not a regular listener, but check into him.

33:21

Probably Dennis Prager, Ben Shapiro.

33:24

Those are two Jewish fellows that are conservative.

33:26

So for the political stuff, I go there.

33:30

I'm sorry, are you gonna say something? Oh, I was just gonna say, people say what you will about Rogan.

33:34

He's definitely knows how to do an interview.

33:36

And that's something I learned from him is just how to interact with a guest and make them feel appreciated, respected, heard.

33:45

Those are things I think he does well, even as a atheist, and he is a outspoken atheist.

33:53

Yeah, so I like behind the scenes stuff as well too, to where it kind of explains how a show happened or how a documentary happened.

34:04

So I'll sometimes jump on the Always Sunny in Philadelphia podcast just to hear how they wrote the episode or something like that.

34:12

There's a lot of blue stuff in those podcast episodes.

34:16

I'm a big believer.

34:17

I don't meditate on those things, but I can consume things that have some, like I said, some blue stuff in it, and I can eat the meat and spit out the bones.

34:27

Another one of those might be, it's called the Victory Podcast with Kevin Dillon, and it focuses on how they produced, wrote, and show ran Entourage.

34:37

Not a big fan of the show Entourage, but I'm a big fan of hearing how they made it.

34:43

There's a podcast out, I only listened to a few episodes of, I can't remember, but it's of The Office, and they talk about each episode, which are becoming very popular.

34:51

You're seeing these shows that ran for long times, now doing a podcast where they go over each episode and they say, this is how we wrote it, this is where we got the idea.

35:00

I really like seeing how the sausage is made on those shows.

35:03

I've always been interested in that, right? So those would be like non-theology or non-biblical, and those I only check into every once in a while.

35:12

Those are kind of like chocolate chip morsels.

35:17

I'm only gonna have a few of those maybe every couple of months.

35:20

That's not something where I'll run through 100 episodes, just a waste of my time.

35:23

They're non-believers.

35:24

I would rather much more delve into theological podcasts, R.C.

35:29

Sproul sermon, John MacArthur sermon, something like that.

35:33

But those are ones where you go, okay, it's interesting.

35:36

I'll listen to it.

35:37

I might give it a half hour.

35:38

I'll listen to it on one and a half or two X.

35:41

Most of my podcasts I do just to, I'm a fast talker and a fast listener.

35:47

Unfortunately, sometimes that's a detriment when I can't remember someone's name or where I met him, but I like to consume that content, kind of pick the good stuff out of there and throw away the rest of it.

35:57

I'm trying to think though.

35:58

There's not too many non-believers that I'm listening to right now.

36:02

Yeah.

36:03

Do you listen on a double time or do you listen at normal speed or one and a half, two speed? So like a one and a half X.

36:13

Now like Ben Shapiro, I can listen to one X because he talks fast, but your Jordan Petersons, if I check into him or a Dennis Prager, it'll be like a one and a half.

36:23

Joe Rogan, it's a one and a half.

36:26

If someone has a lot of ahs and ums and you know, like my good friend, Claude Ramsey from Here I Stand Theology Podcast.

36:34

He was down at the conference we met at.

36:38

Yeah.

36:38

He's a good Southern boy.

36:40

Talks nice and slow, gets his thoughts out.

36:44

Guess what? I love you, Claude, but you're a two Xer.

36:46

You know, you're a two Xer.

36:49

One of my favorite parts of editing podcasts is when I trundicate silence.

36:52

When I go, oh, that was 39 minutes.

36:54

And when I take out anything over more than a three second gap, look at that.

36:58

It went down to 34 minutes.

37:00

So there was five minutes of dead air on there that I wasted for the listener.

37:04

I like this.

37:05

You know what I mean? Let's get that together and hit them quickly.

37:08

If they want to rewind, you know, skip back and relisten to it, that's fine.

37:12

But I don't want to stretch something out 42 minutes when there's only 37 minutes of content.

37:18

Do you have a program that does that for you? Or do you literally go through and look at the sound and cut out those three second gaps? No, so I cheat and I just trundicate silence in like audacity.

37:30

That's the easiest way to do it.

37:32

I set my levels and say, and I've noticed too, with my level staying the same, if I say, that is a certain level and I've narrowed it down after two and a half years to where it'll take out my us because my us are about this decibel.

37:44

I don't want to get into the, you know, to the technical part, but basically cut that out.

37:49

No one needs to hear it.

37:51

I still have a bad habit, just like I'm talking now.

37:53

And I'll say, it's unfortunate, I can't curb it.

37:57

But at the same time, if I'm doing it for my listeners, I like to cut that out and try to just give them pure content.

38:03

Yeah, that's great.

38:04

Yeah, there is a software I used one time.

38:07

I did a podcast with my father.

38:09

Now my father is 70, he's gonna be 78 this year.

38:14

And he had a very difficult childhood.

38:19

And so I had him come on the podcast and talk about, because he was homeless from the age of 12, lived on the street until he went into the Air Force when he was 17.

38:27

So for several years, lived on the street.

38:29

So he just came and told a story, but there was a lot of dead air in that.

38:32

So I actually found a program online, I wish I could remember the name, and it actually went in and did it for me.

38:38

And it was the neatest thing, but it helped because it made it a lot more interesting to listen to it on.

38:45

And I hope somebody, again, if there's somebody out there who has a desire to do a podcast and wants to glorify God with a podcast, I hope they're hearing that we're giving them some ideas of things that we've learned, things that we know help our listeners.

38:58

And so that's really part of what I wanted to talk about today.

39:02

And I just wanna add one more podcast as you mentioned about all the ones.

39:06

I am a big fan, and this was somebody we talked about on your show.

39:10

I'm a big fan of Nate Bargatze.

39:12

He's a standup comic, he's very clean.

39:14

And his show, Nate Land, is just fun.

39:19

I mean, that's my chocolate chip cookies and milk.

39:23

If I'm driving home and I've been listening to sermons all week, or I've been listening to commentaries, because what I'll do sometimes, I'll take commentaries and I'll put them into an AI reader where they will read to me in a natural voice, and I'll listen to that when I'm driving.

39:39

Oh yeah, yeah, that's how I study sometimes.

39:41

I'll listen to a commentary in an AI reader and so I can do that.

39:46

I have a 30 minute drive to the church every day.

39:50

So it's an hour round trip.

39:52

So I can just listen.

39:52

That's a really good idea.

39:54

I bet, wow, you just gave it, I just learned something new.

39:56

So what AI generator is it? Just something you can find online or? Yeah, I actually purchased the ability to use it.

40:07

I think it was like 50 bucks when I bought it, but it's a natural voice reader, and you can put up to a certain amount of text in and it will read it to you like a natural voice.

40:18

Now, the problem with commentaries is oftentimes they have like long stretches of like Bible verses.

40:24

So the person will be like, and Jesus said, go into all the world and make disciples.

40:30

Hashtag Mark 17 six, and it's got this long stretch of like, so you just have to learn to drown some of that.

40:37

And by the way, for anybody who hears that, I know there's not a Mark 17.

40:41

That was a mistake.

40:43

They're marking.

40:45

You're gonna get comments, uh-oh.

40:48

Keith doesn't know there's not a Mark 17.

40:50

Most divisive episode ever right here.

40:52

Pastor doesn't know there's a Mark 17.

40:53

Keith doesn't know there's not a Mark 17.

40:58

No, that's good.

40:59

That's a good idea, man.

41:00

I like that, I'm gonna steal that.

41:02

Yeah, I find it very useful.

41:04

And like I said, when you got long drives to go and you got some studying to do, it's a way to do it for sure.

41:10

Well, I'm gonna finish.

41:12

Like Robert Plant said, what is it? Professionals don't copy, they steal, right? Yeah, yeah.

41:18

I'm gonna just take it right from you.

41:20

Well, I tell people, you know, the difference between plagiarism and research is plagiarism steals from one person and research steals from everybody.

41:28

From everyone, I like that.

41:30

That's what research is.

41:31

You're just taking it from everybody.

41:32

That's what I've been doing on my podcast for the last two years, just researching.

41:35

That's right, just researching.

41:39

Steve Lawson, when he said, when he prepares a sermon, he says, I'm like a beggar looking for bread, man.

41:43

I'll take from anybody.

41:46

So, all right, one final question, and then I'm gonna let you go.

41:50

I know you've got stuff to do today, and I wanna thank you for being a part of the show.

41:54

But I wanna ask you this.

41:56

If you had the opportunity, you're driving to work and you just wanted to listen to someone preach and you wanted to hear your favorite preacher preach the gospel to you and you just wanted to be encouraged by the preaching of the word, what voice is going to be coming out of your phone that day or whatever listening device you listen to? Who's your go-to preacher for encouragement? Yeah, so, well, first of all, my drive to work is a 400-foot walk to work.

42:25

I built an office on my property.

42:27

It's out back.

42:28

It's where I'm at right now.

42:29

So, it wouldn't be too long, but hands down, 100%, the professor himself, R.C.

42:34

Sproul.

42:35

That man marked my life so much, going back to watching his videos in the 70s when he had his little red seersucker suit on, you know, and his little fro.

42:47

And one of our, it's funny, because one of our most popular.

42:52

You mentioned the fro.

42:55

You mentioned the fro.

42:56

I can't believe it.

42:58

Well, look at it.

42:59

I mean, you gotta love it.

43:01

You watch those, you're like, oh my gosh, this was on Betamax, and he's got a fro, and he's got his red suit on, and he's talking about injustice versus injustice.

43:11

You're like, gosh, I love this guy.

43:13

Did not care, but you know, those videos are so 70s too, man.

43:17

It's awesome.

43:18

But probably him, you know, I can always listen to a James White sermon, or honestly, a Jeff Durbin sermon.

43:29

His sermons are so on point.

43:32

John MacArthur, I'll load up at any point, and that'll be good.

43:37

Toby Sumpner, who's out there with Doug Wilson in Moscow, his sermons are great, because you're asking me for a sermon.

43:45

So I'm thinking of, you know, there's great videos and great podcasts, but those guys, but R.C.

43:51

Sproul probably, number one for sure, would be my first choice.

43:54

Absolutely.

43:55

You know what's funny? Me too, me too.

43:57

I always say, I wanna be able to preach like Sproul, just to have that, you know, I wanna have his growl.

44:05

Yeah.

44:06

Sproul growls at you.

44:08

Well, you know what it was? When he was preaching and teaching, you could tell he was just so in love with the word of God.

44:16

He was excited to explain to you what this meant and what this was, and it made you excited to go, oh my God, not only does this guy believe it, he lives it, he loves it, he understands it, and he takes these big things and he shrinks them down into little edible bites out of the Bible.

44:32

And I think good preachers can do that.

44:35

You know, I'm not putting you on the same level as R.C.

44:37

Sproul, but I've watched your sermons online and I appreciate them because you take these big things and you make it palatable for dummies like me and go, oh, that's okay.

44:47

Yeah, I see that.

44:49

So I think we need more of those type of preachers.

44:52

So, you know, keep doing what you're doing, brother.

44:54

Well, again, I'm encouraged, and you are certainly no dummy.

44:58

I've enjoyed getting to know you.

45:00

I've enjoyed- Yeah, but you don't know my wife.

45:02

You need to tell her.

45:04

No.

45:08

Wait, was that your brain going, should I extend this episode another seven minutes to start talking about wife jokes? I really had to- You had about three comebacks right there.

45:20

Yeah, I had to be careful, yeah.

45:23

I said, God bless our wives.

45:26

I'm just gonna say that.

45:27

Absolutely, 100%.

45:28

I met your wife.

45:29

She's a lovely, lovely woman down in Tennessee.

45:32

We are blessed, too blessed by the Lord by our wives, yeah.

45:37

Absolutely, and that's one of the things that a lot of people, and maybe this would be a good place to finish.

45:42

The one thing people don't understand, when we're doing these things, we're taking time away from our families, but we're doing it because we believe it's important and it's valuable, and our families are supportive in this, and so they deserve appreciation, too, our wives.

45:57

100%.

45:58

Yeah, absolutely.

45:59

Wives and kids, yeah.

46:01

Yeah.

46:02

Well, brother, I wanna thank you for coming on my show and being a part of today's program and letting our listeners hear about how your podcast started, and I wanna encourage people to go and listen to the Dead Men Walking podcast.

46:15

What's the best way for people to find you? Is it your YouTube page? Just type in Dead Men Walking? No, apparently not.

46:23

No one really wants to watch my YouTube videos.

46:27

I tell everyone I must have a face for podcasting, but so a lot, we get a lot more listens on audio, but man, we're everywhere.

46:35

You type in Dead Men Walking podcast, it's gonna come up anywhere.

46:38

Apple, Spotify, heck, Alexa, you can tell it to bring it up and it will, but Real DMW Podcast is the only social media that's different from Dead Men Walking Podcast.

46:49

You type in Dead Men Walking Podcast, you're gonna find us everywhere.

46:52

Parlor, Gab, Instagram, Real DMW Podcast on Twitter if you wanna find us there, but you could just Google it and it'll come right up.

47:01

And we appreciate you guys listening and give us some constructive criticism too.

47:06

I like that.

47:07

I like to hear people go, you might wanna do this, or you might wanna call this person on, or I like that part of it too.

47:13

Absolutely, and I find that sometimes my listeners are the best way that I get connected with people is they'll send me a message and they'll tag somebody else and say, hey, you should interview this guy, and then you meet people.

47:25

And I met you, I mean, you met, we met each other through Twitter because we were both going to Tullahoma, but that was, Twitter was our connection.

47:32

Yeah.

47:32

Absolutely.

47:33

Well, again, thank you, brother, so much.

47:35

Thank you, family, for giving us to you for this hour and continue doing what you're doing.

47:39

We all appreciate it.

47:40

Oh, Keith, I appreciate you, brother, and keep doing the podcast, keep doing those videos.

47:46

I loved watching the Buffalo Wild Wings video, just because- Which you had a part in that.

47:53

You guys were- Oh, no, no, no, no, no.

47:54

That was all you, but I just felt we had talked about it a little bit.

47:58

So it was like, they brought back memories of sitting at B-dubs and you said, oh, I got something for this.

48:03

And when it came out, oh, I laughed so hard, especially at the end with the dispensations.

48:08

Oh, he always does this when the bill comes.

48:10

That could have been a better ending.

48:11

I laughed so hard.

48:13

So keep doing what you're doing too, man.

48:15

Keep preaching, podcasts, videos.

48:16

I love the content, brother.

48:18

All right, brother, thank you.

48:19

And we'll talk to you soon.

48:21

All right, bye.

48:22

Bye.

48:24

And thank you, listener, for being a part of Conversation with a Calvinist today.

48:27

I want to, again, remind you that we put out a new podcast every week.

48:32

We also have, just like what we were just talking about, new funny videos that come out, and you can find all of our stuff at calvinistpodcast.com.

48:38

You can follow me on Twitter, at YourCalvinist.

48:41

And if you want to show support to the show, you can go to buymeacoffee.com slash yourcalvinist.

48:46

I want to thank you for listening to Conversations with a Calvinist.

48:48

My name is Keith Foskey, and I've been your Calvinist.

48:51

May God bless you.