Year in Review 2020

Conversations That Matter

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Welcome to the Conversations That Matter podcast. It is the last podcast of 2020. Hard to believe.

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I can't believe it. I mean, I don't know about you, but this year went by. I remember New Year's Day about a year ago as if it was two weeks ago.

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That's what it feels like. And I wonder, I thought maybe I'm just getting older, but I wonder if it's the fact that 2020 had so many uncertainties, so many things happened.

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We were constantly, our minds were engaged in trying to react and figure out and plan that time flies when, as the saying goes, time flies when you're having fun.

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Or as Kermit the Frog said, time's fun when you're having flies. But either way, the reason for that is because your mind's occupied.

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It's not because it's fun necessarily. It's just your mind is constantly doing something. Like a workday goes by, an eight -hour workday when you're busy all day.

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It just seems like it flies by. So 2020 feels like that. And it's just impressing upon me.

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I mean, I have this every year, but this year more than ever, the reality of Ecclesiastes, that life is a vapor, it's a breath, here today, gone tomorrow, the end of the matter is to fear

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God and keep his commandments, for this applies to every person. God will bring every act into judgment, whether good or evil.

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And New Year's resolutions are a great time. New Year's is a great time to have resolutions, to think about what could you have done better?

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What did you like? What did you do well? What did, I mean, I don't wanna get into this mentality.

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It's just performance evaluation. There are people in that. I mean, I think I used to be in that more, and sometimes I still can get caught up in that.

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It's not just, we wanna celebrate today. Today is, the passage of time is another, is a year of thankfulness.

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It's a year to be thankful to God for his grace, his provision, all these kinds of things. To look forward to what he has next.

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We don't know what that'll be. You know, if the Lord wills, we will go to this city or purchase this commodity or whatever.

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It's all up to God. He holds the future in his hands, and we're thankful to him for his provision.

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But it's also just a great time, in my opinion, to take some inventory. And, you know, maybe there are habits that you can form in 2021, in relationships you can invest in, perhaps goals that you can accomplish, projects that have needed to take place that you've been talking about for five, 10 years, and now it's the time to do it.

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I would encourage you, find a reachable goal, even if it's just one, and go for it. Don't bite off more than you can chew.

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I did that two years ago. I had tried to say, what I did was, I said, I'm gonna read 100 books.

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So, you know, that little Goodreads. I have a Goodreads account. So Goodreads, you know, said, what's your goal?

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And I went, oh, 100. Well, I think I got like 30. You know, it's like, wow, okay. You know, and then at the end of the year,

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I was kind of like, man, was I a failure in that? Well, no, no, no, I'm not a failure. I just didn't know what my capacity was.

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So try to assess accurately if you can. Kind of where you're at, what's possible. But it's a good time to, because your calendar changes.

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You can look back and you say, that's the time I kicked this habit or started to kick it, or I started this new habit.

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And I just think it is good. And a lot of people read through the Bible in the year. That's a great goal to shoot for as well.

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So happy new year to everyone out there. We're gonna take a little inventory today of just what's happened on the conversations that matter channel, this

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YouTube channel, this some of you listen on iTunes and other platforms. We're gonna take some inventory. I'm just gonna give you kind of a year in review.

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What's happened this year? For those who support me on Patreon, this is a really good opportunity to kind of,

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I think to really take credit for what you've been part of, because you have, and I always realize that I'm so thankful to all of you for your prayers, for the support that you give as well.

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It just means, it means a lot and it helps me to do what I'm doing. And I've been scaling back some of the, as many of you know,

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I have a side business. I've been scaling it back a bit during the last few months. And I've been starting to invest more in projects associated with this podcast, with the podcast itself, with writing.

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And I'm hoping in 2021 to do more of that. And it's all because of your support and so I'm gonna talk to you about some exciting things coming up in 2021.

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I'm gonna tell you about some of the things that happened in 2020, that you were a part of. I mean, this is the audience and I've said this before, you guys are the audience that makes things happen, that gets things done.

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It's not me, it's you guys. And I'm very focused on that. I wanna help you guys respond to arguments you're hearing.

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I want you to give you the encouragement to go and talk to your pastor, or if you're in an organization that's going social justice to confront it.

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I want to just hold firm. Sometimes you don't even need to confront, you just hold firm. I didn't post a black square on my

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Twitter. Silence is violence now, you just be passive and do nothing. Well, hold firm.

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If that passivity is a stand, make that passivity a stand. And I've been trying to explain the social justice movement, what they're about.

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And I remember a few years ago, this was two and a half, maybe, two years ago, two and a half years ago.

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The discussion at that point was that, especially in the Southern Baptist Convention, but I think more broadly in all of evangelicalism, there really is no social justice controversy.

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It doesn't exist. There's some conservatives trying to drum up all sorts of trouble.

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They're trying to say that this exists, but it doesn't. And we're united in Christ because whatever, the

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Baptist faith and message or something. And I mean, I've been at this now for a little while and two years,

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I guess I've had the podcast and I've been fighting this for a little longer than that. And I remember,

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I can remember names of people, even. Some of them you might recognize. One of them in particular,

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I'm thinking about right now, but who literally told me in a public forum, this was on Twitter, I think, literally just said that I was blowing smoke.

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I had shown some things on Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, which may not even be there anymore.

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Because Southeastern keeps filing copyright claims against me, even though it's under fair use. And don't worry about that.

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I've already thought through how I'm gonna approach this. But anyway,

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I'm just, I'm picking at a scab. There's nothing there. I'm cherry picking.

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It's just, and I just thought to myself, this guy has no clue what he's talking about. Even though this person was kind of, has a semi -prominent position in this

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SBC, at teaches actually, at a, not an SBC seminary, but another one that, anyway,

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I just, I remember that. I remember it kind of vividly and just making fun of me. And now to look at where we are.

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And this isn't a see, I told you so. This is more, I mean, I was in the classrooms, he wasn't. I was hearing the things just at that point,

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I had just left seminary and I knew what was going on.

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He didn't and he didn't maybe realize that, which is fine. I'm not condemning anyone here. I'm just saying, it's how obvious is it now that what was being taught at the seminaries just a few years ago has made its way to the pulpits and the pews.

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And it's, I mean, this is unfortunately, there's a few of us that predicted this because I was sitting in seminary.

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There were others who knew what was being taught and they predicted it. They said, this is gonna have an effect.

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And while it was in that ivory tower, people didn't know what was going on. Now they're starting to figure it out. And it's a sad thing, but you know what?

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God's in control. God, this is a time, like I said, this is not a just a time to do an evaluation of yourself or of whatever organizations you're part of or whatever you care about.

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This is also a time to be thankful to the Lord. God's in control. He's waking people up to this social justice religion.

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It's a false religion and he's used you to do it. He's used this audience to do it.

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You guys have been the ones on social media pushing it. You have, you've gone out. Some of you have searched for examples.

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You've brought those examples up. You're not just relying on me. That's what I wanted. Don't just rely on me. I'm helping you.

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I'm gonna putting tools in your hand. I'm showing you where to look. And then you guys went out and you made things happen.

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And there's a reason that there's some real pushback now against this stuff. It's obvious to anyone that there's a controversy.

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I mean, that was the hard part just a few years ago, trying to get people to even realize a controversy existed. Now people know, yeah, there's a controversy.

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I think the election helped show that the Black Lives Matter movement from earlier this year. I think even the

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COVID stuff perhaps has and the overreaction, the government's overreach has

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I think exposed some of this. And so I just wanna say thank you to all of you before I get started here.

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You are the audience that gets things done. And I appreciate it so much.

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And if anyone wants to know what I'm drinking, by the way, it's Dr. Pepper. This is a little fun fact about me.

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This is just about my favorite soda. I say just about, because I mean, my mood can change, but it's between Dr.

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Pepper, Mr. Pibb, right? I don't know if any, I don't think they call it Mr. Pibb. Just Pibb Extra.

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I like those two a lot. And then root beer. And the more vanilla in the root beer, the better. So there's a little fun fact that I am giving you for no reason.

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So hopefully you, oh, and Cheerwine. Sometimes Cheerwine's pretty good. That's for those who don't live, like North Carolina, Cheerwine is the drink of choice.

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You have to be in the right mood for it. It's kind of like an amped up cherry Dr. Pepper for lack of a better description.

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But all right, anyway, getting back to the subject at hand, I'm gonna take you through some of the highlights of this year, in my opinion.

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There's so many things we could talk about, but I just wanna give you, here's the highlights. Here's what you helped, you supported, that you just sharing on social media, or just even viewing, liking, reviewing the book

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I wrote on Amazon, on Goodreads, on Audible. For those of you who have given through Patreon, those of you,

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I mean, they're just, so many of you have just helped get the message out. And so we're gonna go over some of that.

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And then we're gonna close things up with, I'm gonna share with you a little bit of a vision for 2021. And then

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I'm gonna read for you, and actually an English poem, and I'll explain that. But so here's my little list

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I wanna show you of some of the things that have happened in 2020.

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Here's 10 things that you all helped support. We interviewed

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Russell Fuller on the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and Al Mohler. I think that was significant. I think that was the beginning of a turning point in the

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Southern Baptist Convention. Southern Seminary felt the need to create all these defense videos that did not get nearly as many views, and were very confusing, and were just poorly executed.

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Bunch of people talking about things that were not in question, or sidestepping the actual issues.

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Fuller had a document dump. Most people, I think, still don't realize that. You can go to any of the interviews

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I did with him, and you can find the documents that we dumped, proving exactly what he was talking about.

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And that happened earlier in the year. I wanna say it was March, maybe, when we did that.

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I feel like it was early spring. Anyway, that was very effective, and it still is effective at showing people, okay, yes, there is a problem in the

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Southern Baptist Convention. And the only people that really stood by the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary and Al Mohler were the fanboys, those who were, there's nothing you can show those people to dissuade them from their opinion.

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Their minds are so given over to the institution. I mean, they're institutionalists. It's not about the kingdom of God as much as it is about the institution that they're part of.

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And they will repeat the word slander, and lying, or racist, till the cows come home, anything.

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I mean, it's political correctness on steroids. They'll say anything to attack the, in my case, they attacked me just asking

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Russell Fuller questions. Some of them attacked Russell Fuller directly, saying that he was on the side of the accuser, meaning the devil.

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I mean, these are some prominent people, teaching pastors that are going into Southern Baptist churches from the flagship seminary of the

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Southern Baptist Convention. It's scary stuff. But Russell Fuller was brave.

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He exposed some of it. And then he also started his own theology classroom.

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You can go and you can take classes, even now, from Russell Fuller at an exceptionally reasonable cost.

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And you're getting a seminary level education there. And I think you can go to russellfuller .com. You can find out more about that.

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You can find him on Facebook. We've done some episodes talking about it. But that launched his new career.

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He's still teaching. And he had almost 200 students, as I understand it, last semester. It's amazing, guys.

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He's talking about bringing on some more faculty, maybe creating a certificate program. I mean, he's just amazed at the response he's gotten.

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And you know that this was all launched, all this was possible because we were able to give him a platform by interviewing him and just letting him tell a story.

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And that's all it was, just letting him tell a story. Number two, we helped facilitate the

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First Baptist Church of Naples documentary that Enemies Within the Church was the one that financed that.

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But we helped facilitate it because I was on the phone for weeks before that, many times, organizing.

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I was there. I was in the same place. I was debriefing people. I was with those, some of them who did not even go on camera from FBC Naples.

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I was giving advice. I was helping out in any way I could. And this would not have happened if it weren't for your support and what we were able to do.

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A generous, very generous patron even paid for my flight to go down there. And I just appreciate it.

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It would not have been possible without you all. Also the Tom Rush interview.

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I wasn't there for that, but I did help a little bit beforehand, give some advice to Dr.

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Tom Rush. And Enemies Within the Church, again, was the one who just filmed him telling a story.

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That's all it was. They're not getting anything for it. I'm not getting anything for it. We weren't doing it.

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They didn't do it to make any money. They're doing it because they believe in the cause and they think Tom Rush has a story that needs to be told.

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And it completely corroborated Russell Fuller's story. So two examples there.

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Number three, we exposed compromises in the Southern Baptist Convention by platforming whistleblowers, by responding to content from the

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ERLC and the seminaries and the IMB, et cetera, different entities. I specifically singled them out because I think

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I've done more content on the SBC than other denominations because of its size, because I went to an

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SBC seminary, because my family heritage goes back to the start of the SBC. Actually, I don't know if I've ever shared this before.

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Fun fact though, my dad was the one who kind of like left the Southern Baptist Convention during the, right before or during,

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I think it was right before the first conservative resurgence. It was getting too liberal, specifically on Darwinism.

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I think that was his main issue. And before then though, there was a, you can trace the line back.

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I mean, our family's been, at least on my dad's side, on his father's side, you trace that back,

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Southern Baptist going back to like the foundation of the convention itself. And so it was my dad who kind of like got out of that.

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And then I wanted to get back in. It's one of the reasons I went to Southeastern. I thought, no, there was a conservative resurgence. It's all good now.

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We can go back into this denomination. And little did I know that the rot had already started just coming from a postmodern direction instead of a modern direction.

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And so it's sad. But anyway, that's part of the reason

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I think I have been more invested in the SBC. I've read a lot of the history of the foundation of the convention as well.

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It's been something near and dear to me, but that doesn't mean we're not gonna focus on other denominations in 2021, believe me.

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I think the SBC is becoming a dead horse. We're beating it too many times, perhaps, but we're gonna keep the pressure on.

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We're not giving up yet. And there is a convention coming up. And if you're not part of Conservative Baptist Network, if you're part of the

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SBC, if you're choosing to remain in, you need to at least be part of Conservative Baptist Network and make your last stand in 2021, in my opinion.

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But that's just me. But we've helped expose this compromise. People would not have known if it weren't for the platform,

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Conversations That Matter, and other platforms as well, shining the light on these things. We helped advise and expose social justice advocates in other organizations like Liberty University.

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We had an interview with a student from the Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Nine Marks Ministries, the

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Gospel Coalition, even Desiring God to some extent. One of the things that I can't share all of it, but I do wanna at least say regarding Liberty University, you all have helped tremendously, more than you know, more than you know, with Liberty University, and keeping it on a better track than it would have been otherwise.

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And I'll just leave it there. I just, I can't share all the details of that, nor would some people probably want me to.

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But some of what we've been able to do on this podcast, some of what conversations I have been able to have as well with people at the university, people who are concerned about the university, it has just been powerful.

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In some ways, I think that's one of actually the biggest things that you guys have helped in this year.

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But it's not, I can't share all the details of it, unfortunately, but you can certainly take some credit and I appreciate, and I'm sure many at Liberty appreciate the help that you've been.

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We've helped interpret evangelical elites such as John Piper, Max Lucado, Tim Keller, and Al Mohler, you know, this, the interpretation,

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I wanted to use that word specifically because so much of the language that's being used is so vague. We don't know, what do these people mean?

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What do you mean when you're talking about this guilt for, you know, like I'll use

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Max Lucado. He had, you know, whatever, years ago said a, what he would consider to be a racial slur,

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I guess, and no one knew about it really, but then he exposed it for thousands of people to hear that he had said this and wanted to apologize.

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And it, for a lot of people, you hear a story like that and you wonder what in the world is going on? What's motivating this?

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Why bring up something that could cause pain when it didn't? And it was, you know, what is, what's up with that?

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And we have helped explain that. This podcast has been a hub for helping to interpret what is actually happening, what's going, what would motivate something like that?

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What is it trying to accomplish when something like that happens? Why are these people who we've trusted in becoming compromised?

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So it's helped people who have been deer in the headlights, feeling rejected, feeling confused, and we've been able to explain.

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And explain is a very important part of this. We've responded to content from Phil Vischer, from David Platt, from Eric Mason, Beth Moore, Russell Moore, Paul Tripp, et cetera.

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We've taken some of their content and I've gone point by point. Here's where the problems are. Here's why we shouldn't take this seriously.

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We released a seminar on responding to social justice. And you can find that on the YouTube channel.

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It's a three -part seminar. It was a day thing, but it's as close as I've gotten to giving you kind of a point by point.

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Here's what's happening. Here's how to understand it. Here's how to respond to it as a Christian. We, well, you helped me write, release, and distribute.

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Social justice goes to church. There's a book out there now. You can pick up social justice goes to church, the new left in modern

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American evangelicalism. And you can read the story of how these ideas made their way into mainstream evangelicalism.

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This hasn't really been done before. It's never been done before. And now there's a history of it.

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Now you can go and you can trace the lines. You can figure out, okay, why, who influenced the current crop of mainstream evangelicals to go the social justice direction?

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We, well, you helped me attend some events where I was able to support others or network,

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CPAC, the Shepherds Conference. I was at the Stop the Steal.

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So it's two of those rallies, some speaking engagements. I will also be at the

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Stop the Steal rally, the, I think it's wildrally .com,

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something like that. January 6th in Washington, DC, I'm gonna be there. I already got a hotel for the 5th.

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I'm gonna drive up and I'm gonna be there. And I don't know what to expect, but we're, this is a, we're at a crossroads and we, the

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Lord hates unjust weights and measures. The Lord hates lying. Lord hates stealing. We're seeing all those things at play.

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We're seeing foreign interference in our elections. We're seeing horrible things happen. This isn't about Trump. This is about election integrity.

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And it's about whether or not the United States has any kind of future as a free country. It's not a free country if elections are rigged.

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And so, you know, I'll be there. I don't know if my being there is just gonna be relegated to being in the audience and helping to increase the crowd size, or,

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I mean, I'm encouraging others to go as well. But, you know, I think it's important.

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And so you can see me if you come. Just send me an email or if, hopefully if I can get an email while I'm there, if the service isn't down because of all the people or anything crazy that,

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I'll just put it this way. I don't trust the people in DC necessarily to have all the accommodations necessary for the crowd that's gonna show up.

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But hopefully we'll be able to connect and, you know, but there've been a number of other events in 2020 that you have allowed me, given me the funds to be able to go to, to encourage others, to network.

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As a case, maybe I don't really go to network. It just, that happens, but it's mainly just to encourage others.

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That's why I like to go to some of these things. And so much appreciated for that.

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I also was able to introduce some new voices and you helped me do that. Matt Truella, Rod Martin, Phil Lee.

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I'm sure there's others, but, you know, Matt Truella was, he wrote Doctrine of the Lesser Magistrate. And many of you had not heard of Matt Truella.

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And I said, this is a book you need to get. And it is, it really is. Rod Martin, some of you in the

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Southern Baptist world knew about him, some of you outside did not, but really shrewd guy, really smart guy when it comes to politics.

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And he's a Christian at the same time. So political and Christian. And he seems to know the difference, know the balance.

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Phil Lee, I did an episode with him on the controversy over, I was gonna say

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Confederate monuments, but now it's like every monument in American history. And Phil Lee, I think, just does a great job writing about this issue.

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He has a podcast as well. And, you know, these are some names you may not have heard of. And so I, that's one of the things that I focus on.

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I could, you know, some conservative podcasts try to, a more political conservative, but maybe even religious.

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Yeah, I guess it's religious as well. Some Christian conservative podcasts will just kind of platform everyone you've already heard of and get their, and that's not, there's nothing wrong with that.

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I do that sometimes, but I really like to find that person, that diamond in the rough that you may have not heard of, and then show you, hey, this guy's been thinking about a topic that you really haven't heard, thought about much.

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And he's sometimes, you know, like Zach Gares, for instance, one of my last interviews. Hey, this guy's willing to talk about things you've probably always had questions about, but no one wants to talk about it because they're afraid.

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And the bigger the voice, I'm just telling you, the bigger the voice in the conservative world, the less likely they are to speak on controversial subjects you've had questions about.

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They're gonna stick to more of the mainstream stuff. They're gonna run towards the middle a little bit. They're gonna step out, see if the coast is clear.

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I'm trying to bring you some voices that aren't like that, that care about truth, that are willing to say what needs to be said.

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They might have smaller platforms, but you need to know the truth. And so that's one of the things that we've been able to do this year.

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Now, moving forward to 2021, oh, before we get there,

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I forgot I put this slide in. Here's some of the top videos, just so you guys know. And these are all specifically from this year.

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So year 2020, here's the top videos, top nine. First is

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Nine Marks Reacts to John MacArthur's, and I guess it cut off. I don't know what the rest of that title is. I think it's the unwillingness to close his church.

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And I analyzed it. I showed you, by the way, Jonathan Lehman blocked me on Twitter, and there were no interactions with him.

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Like, I'm not sure. It was just kind of out of the blue. I'm not sure if it was because of this video, but we analyzed what

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Jonathan Lehman specifically was saying. He was saying, basically, hey, before you follow John MacArthur and open your church, wait, just wait.

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But then people didn't seem to know that Jonathan Lehman was out marching with a pseudo -Christian

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Black Lives Matter march. And I pointed it out, that he had said in 2015 that Black Lives Matter, I think he said it was a gospel issue or it was related to the gospel.

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So we went through that, and that garnered a lot of views. A lament, how the gospel coalition is destroying justice in the gospel, 76 ,000 views.

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And that was just me taking some clips from their lament video and commenting on them. What happened to John Piper, 71 ,000 views, trying to explain why

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John Piper kind of went social justicy. Why are all my friends Marxists?

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That 50 ,000 views. And this was a wake up for a lot of people.

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A lot of people really liked this one because it explained kind of what was behind the

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Black Lives Matter movement, why it was Marxist, why all your friends overnight seemed to go for it.

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And then Phil Vischer's Dishonest Race in America, 36 ,000 views. Phil Vischer made this video.

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And I will say this about Phil Vischer. Phil Vischer is very good at propaganda in the kind of culture in which we live.

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If we lived 100 years ago, Phil Vischer would probably not be that good. Well, maybe he'd be decent,

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I don't know. 200 years ago, he would not be that good because people were educated differently in general.

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There's always those who are gonna be persuaded by the kind of argument that Vischer brings, but more than likely, those who had any influence at all would not have taken

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Phil Vischer seriously one bit because they were more rational, less emotional. Well, Phil Vischer, he's a master at propaganda in our day and age because he is a cartoon guy.

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And he's also, he's kind of humorous. You combine those two things. I mean, where have we been going for politics for a while now?

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People my age, the Comedy Central, that's where they were going like 10 years ago, 15 years ago. They're used to it,

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SNL. And Phil Vischer is able to kind of have that quirky, cheesy, but funny kind of demeanor and then give you a cartoon of what happened.

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And the cartoon embedded in that is an oversimplification of so many things. And then he's able to weave a narrative by stringing these things together that if you don't know history, that you'll swallow and you'll say, oh, well, okay, that makes sense.

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And because there's visuals, because it's funny, a lot of your, the barrier that you normally have intellectually kind of circumvents that.

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And look, no problem with Phil Vischer wanting to do things that way. It's not necessarily a wrong thing for him to use that kind of method, use his skills as an animator to weave a narrative, make it simplistic, et cetera, so a kid can understand it.

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But it's just dishonest so much of the time. That's the problem. It's a dishonest narrative and he's able to do it because he's using that kind of a format.

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And so I went through, it was almost a two hour video and I took apart, I think his video was 20 minutes.

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So I put like 10 minutes to every one minute of his and I provided commentary on it and just, and I've done that with,

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I think there's another Phil Vischer video, I went over some of it as well. And many of you found that helpful.

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So that was another one. The Russell Fuller videos downgrade at Southern Seminary.

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The first one had 34 ,000 views. You can see two of them in this. And then

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What Happened to Paul David Tripp, 31 ,000 views. And the Social Justice Gospel, 24 ,000, which is also,

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I think, Why Are All My Friends Marxist? And then the Social Justice Gospel, I think are the two major videos.

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If you wanna send someone, hey, I want you to see these two videos. And by the way, they're not as long as for whatever reason, it says an hour and 23 minutes.

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I don't know why it says that, it's not that long. Neither is the Social Justice Gospel, they're much shorter than that.

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But yeah, those are the two videos I'd send to people and say, okay, you wanna intro to this? You wanna understand what's happening in the church?

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Here's two videos. Now someone who's a patron asked me to share this.

31:06

This is a Discord. And now I'm not familiar with Discord, full disclosure. I don't know anything about Discord. I guess he explained to me it's like a gamer platform or something.

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But there is a Discord channel, I guess, for those who care about social justice in the church.

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And so I'm gonna put the link in the info section for this video. And apparently those links, they expire after 24 hours.

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I don't get it, I don't understand how it works. But for those who understand how this works, this individual would like to connect with you.

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And he hasn't given me permission to use his name, but I guess once you go there, you'll find all that out. And so if you care about social justice in the church and you use

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Discord, there's a place for you to go and connect with others. So I wanted to put that there lest I forget.

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Moving forward, 2021, here's a few things that I wanna share with you about 2021. And there's so much more.

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But like I said at the beginning of this video, I know better than to do the New Year's resolution thing and bite off more than you can chew.

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It's gonna be, there's gonna be more stuff than just what I'm putting here. But I wanna at least give you an idea of kind of where I'm headed.

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The Discerning Christians website was supposed to launch before Christmas. I know I've mentioned before, we're very close to launching it, but a number of us are, we're working basically part -time on this.

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People that are working full -time jobs, trying to take time after work to work on this. And right now

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I'm gonna, I'm actually waiting to hear back from a lawyer. We're getting the terms of service together.

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We're very close. But I think this will be launched in January, maybe

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February, but I think January is when we'll be able to launch the Discerning Christians website to help you connect with other

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Christians, with other churches, register your church, et cetera, so that we can have a network that is not social justice, where you can find out who is like -minded in your area.

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The NeNe's Deli documentary, we're doing that in January. We'll hopefully be able to launch it in February or March.

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This is, you can go to the info section, find the link for the Give, Send, Go, and then contribute to us.

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We are raising money for this. It's gonna cost me about 10 ,000 bucks. I think we've already raised about half that. And whatever differences is,

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I'll make it up. Many of you patrons have been so generous that some of that's going to it.

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But I mean, we're just putting resources into this. And I did an interview with Juan Riesco last week where we talked about this story, incredible story.

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This is the first documentary that I'm really trying to head up myself and get a team together.

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And we have a team and they're gonna go in and they're gonna get the story. So I'm excited about that.

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I'm looking at a 1607 project. I've already written a proposal. Some people have looked at it.

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I think I'm gonna have to start a 501c3 if I wanna see it happen though. We'll see. But this would be a counter narrative to the 1619 project.

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And then I'm looking at another book. I have to be honest, for like the last month and a half, two months, I haven't written anything in it.

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But that has been the plan is to knock this out early next year, probably gonna self publish.

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And it's gonna be more of an apologetic approach to the social justice issue and much more, many more things.

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And I just all, thanks to the Lord and thanks to you for your support and your prayers. And I hope this was encouraging to you to just hear some of the things that have happened this year.

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Now, to close, I'd like to read for you a poem. This is in a book,

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Standard English Poems. And it's actually 1909, I believe was when, 1902 was when this was first published.

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It was given to me by a good friend who's a literature major. I was a, in community college,

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I was liberal arts humanities. That was my first step into the academic, the college collegiate world was liberal arts humanities.

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And I had to take a few English courses and they were terrible. I had 18th, 19th century

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British literature and I had American literature and both professors were deconstructionists.

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They just, everything paralleled something else that was either perverted or they just took down the authors.

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They took down the stories, nothing of value, just criticize it. And I just, you know,

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I didn't pull it. I mean, I didn't like reading that stuff out. I didn't have any interest in reading. Why would I read literature from that time period, especially?

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And now I'm realizing, I've realized the last few years, no, there's a richness there. And I just had some knucklehead professors.

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But one of the things that I, growing up, I almost thought it was kind of, okay, don't criticize me for this people.

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But I did think growing up that poetry was feminine. If you were a girl, you liked poetry. If you were a boy,

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I don't know, you liked racing cars, football, guns, other things. And, you know, there's some truth to the boys like those things.

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But actually poetry, it's not in the same category. I'm gonna get in trouble if I say what's in my head right now.

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Let's, it's not in a feminine category. We'll just, I'll leave it there. It's not something that's feminine actually at all.

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In fact, women can be great poets, but men can be excellent poets.

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And many of the great poets of history were men. And, you know, duh, of course, most of you know this.

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But I don't know, for whatever reason, that's the idea I had. And even though I liked, you know, the limerick kind of poetry,

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I didn't, I just didn't have a rich, I didn't know a lot of poetry. And the last few years, my,

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I've enjoyed it more. And I've, you know, just, I've realized how rich it is, how encouraging it can be, the, how actually infused

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Christianity is into English poetry specifically from the past.

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Let me read to you just a parting poem here, a short poem on, well, it's not technically on New Year's, but it's a petition to time.

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And it's a poem that I think is appropriate to ring the new year in with. By Brian Waller Proctor, who lived 1787 to 1874.

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And he wrote this. It was included in an anthology called Poems 1850, 1850.

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A petition to time. Touch us gently, time. Let us glide down thy stream, gently, as we sometimes glide through a quiet dream.

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Humble voyagers are we, husband, wife, and children, three. One is lost, an angel fled to the azure overhead.

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Azure overhead. Touch us gently, time. We've not proud, nor soaring wings.

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Our ambition, our content lies in simple things. Humble voyagers are we, or life's dim, unsounded sea.

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Seeking only some calm climb. Touch us gently, gentle time.

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And I hope that time will touch you gently and that the

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Lord will fulfill your desire for simple things, a decent and quiet life in 2021.