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Wise Disciple

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Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, uh, let me just go ahead and jump right in. So tonight's gonna be different, okay? Uh, it's gonna be a totally different video.

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I... I need to tell you about what's going on with me. Um, it's interesting because I -

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I've noticed lately that a lot of YouTubers are quitting YouTube. Have you seen this? Um, I find it fascinating because...

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I'm also quitting. Let me - let me - let me back up, okay? If this is your first time here, wow, you sure picked a video to start with.

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Okay? My name is Nate, and I've been helping you become the effective Christian that you were meant to be.

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I mean, that's what this channel is all about. Uh, let me tell you a story. Stick with me, okay? It's a brief story.

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It'll make sense. Um, I was talking to a friend of mine recently, and he was like, Man, you know what?

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The YouTube channel is blowing up quick. And I was thinking to myself, Boy. No, uh, it sure seems quick for everybody, but I've been at this for 11 years.

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I don't know if you know that. Wise Disciples started out as a blog 11 years ago.

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It had a different name and a different focus back then. Uh, I started a blog because I was just so excited about what

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I was learning, you know? My calling has always been, uh, to teach. You know, that's just what fills me up.

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It gives me passion. I mean, that's been pretty clear since day one, since I think I got saved, you know?

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I was just finishing my degree in theology, and I just wanted to share. I just get excited.

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So I wanted to share everything I was learning with anyone who had listened. And so I created the blog for that reason.

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And then slowly over time, some people came along and said, Hey, love what you're doing.

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Can I also write for the blog? And before you know it, I had, like, there's like this team around me of like seven people.

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It was crazy. Uh, right around that time, I was talking to Brett Kunkel, who's an apologist, who he used to be with Stand to Reason.

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And now he heads up an organization called Maven. Um, I was telling Brett back then about my situation, and he said,

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Nate, you should incorporate and become a 501c3. And I thought to myself, okay.

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You know what I mean? Like, he knows what he's talking about. And so I filed the paperwork, and we incorporated.

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We became a nonprofit, and I have a team around me now. What I noticed over time was my team started to fall away, and it was for nothing dramatic.

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It was just, hey, Nate, we're starting a family or, you know, hey, Nate, we're switching careers. None of us were ever getting paid.

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This was always a passion project for all of us. Um, but things happened, and I totally understand, and I praised

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God for the time that we had together. But for the last several years, I've been primarily the one making content for the website, for YouTube, and so it got to the point recently where my board and I, we just finally realized, hey, we're not a functioning nonprofit anymore.

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And so we very recently dissolved the 501c3. Well, along the way, um, as I've been doing

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Wise Disciple at night, I've had these day jobs, you know, and one of them was a high school teacher.

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Uh, I was a high school teacher for Clark County for a number of years, and then I transitioned out of that and became a pastor at a church in Las Vegas.

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Uh, but I was always doing Wise Disciple on the side, and I was always only just giving it about 20 percent, maybe 25 percent of my time and effort.

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And then finally, I transitioned off staff at the church, and I joined up with an organization called

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Summit Ministries. And last year, my family, uh, we, my family and I, we moved to Nashville, um, and we sensed that the

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Lord was behind it. You know, this is what the Lord is doing, you know, and it was confirmed because my superiors at Summit came to me and they said, hey, would you consider moving to Tennessee?

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And I was like, oh my gosh, this is what we were praying about anyway. Well, right before I moved, I was talking to, uh, a kind of a new friend of mine.

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His name's Michael Jones. Um, he has a channel called Inspiring Philosophy. It's a great channel, by the way, you know.

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If you don't know him, you should definitely take a look. And Michael said, hey, Nate, you know what? You should just make this one little tweak on your

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YouTube channel. And I thought, okay, you know, he knows what he's talking about.

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Um, and so then I made the tweak and then I moved to Nashville and I got involved with, uh,

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Summit Ministries' Summer Apologetics Program. It's like a conference for students.

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Had a blast. Again, my calling is to be a teacher, so it was just right up my alley. And boy,

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Michael Jones was right. The channel started to grow and I didn't even realize it at the time. I was off -grid. I was just kind of doing that.

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But the, the, uh, the views started going up, the subscribership. And along the way, comments and emails started flooding in.

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And the vast majority of these emails were not, hey, Nate, like the video. Thank you. It was,

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I'm broken. I'm lost. I'm hurting. I've been burned by my previous church.

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I'm not currently attending church. I feel far from God. I have no one to talk to. Can you help me? And maybe you right now watching is, is you're one of those people that emailed me.

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And I gotta tell you, it just broke my heart. As a pastor, I really felt the weight of the burden these folks were carrying.

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And so for the last, boy, five months or so, maybe a little bit longer, this has just been a huge issue for me.

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And it's just been looming over me. What do I do? What do I do about this? I can't give it my full time and energy.

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I've got a day job. And so I'm just praying. I literally, I'm losing sleep over this.

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Lord, what do I do? How do I figure this out? And finally it dawned on me. I was doing a

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Bible study. By the way, just as an aside, you can join me right now for free on the

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Patreon. Read the Bible with me. We're going to the Gospel of Matthew. It's been blessing a lot of people. Praise God.

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Um, but just in my own studies and the way that I read the scripture, I was doing a study of the parables of Jesus and just noticing this recurring theme.

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Outcast. It just kept popping up. Outcast. God is for the outcast. Pay attention to the outcast.

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And I realized, wait a second, these people that keep reaching out to me every single week,

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I'm getting like 50 to 75 emails a week from people. They're the ones I'm supposed to be paying attention to.

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You, you in my audience, you're the ones that I'm supposed to be paying attention to.

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And the moment I realized that I wept, which is a big deal because I, I really only cry about once every fourth summer equinox.

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You know, it's just not, that's not me. But I'm, it just really dawned on me, man,

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God answered my prayers about how to understand what he's been doing in my life, especially in the last six months.

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And as soon as that happened, I called my superiors at Summit Ministries and I resigned.

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And so here's my announcement, ladies and gentlemen. Wow. Um, I just resigned my position at Summit Ministries so I can do

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Wise Disciple 100%. And it's overwhelming and it's scary.

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Um, I've never done anything like this before. It's a huge step in faith. But I'm trusting the

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Lord that this is exactly what I'm supposed to be doing. I'm supposed to be talking to you. I, I feel that in my bones.

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And, uh, boy, I hope you can appreciate things are about to get super interesting.

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Uh, what that means for us, for you and me, um, is the sky's the limit.

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I've never had the ability to put 100 % focus and effort into this ministry until today.

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And now we're about to find out what that looks like. And I got to tell you, I'm super excited. I hope you're as excited as I am.

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Um, I'm going to tell you about a couple of projects that I got going on right now, just so that you can, uh, understand what's happening, what's about to happen.

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But here's the tough part. Okay. Ah, I don't like this, uh, part. Hey, I need to ask you something.

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If this channel has blessed you in any way, um, would you consider supporting me over on Patreon?

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Uh, this way I can continue to lean into the resources and training for Christians so that we can be disciples that Jesus calls us to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.

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Um, and, uh, and it'll free me up to not have to think about, uh, you know, uh, some of the things that, you know, just regular housekeeping things and, and bills and things like I can put a hundred percent effort into this ministry.

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So would you prayerfully consider supporting me there? I'll leave a link for the, the Patreon in the notes.

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And, uh, for all those who feel led to do that, thank you so much. I really do appreciate you.

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Let me tell you about two projects coming up that I'm super excited about. One of them was actually much requested.

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It's a series on how to study the Bible, like the way that I do it. Um, if you've watched any of my videos, you can see that I make these kinds of,

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I don't know what the word is, like unique connections to the scripture, um, just from like things happening in our lives, right?

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Well, um, I used to teach how to study the Bible as a pastor at my church. Um, but I'm going to teach you, all of you, how

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I do it, um, and how to make those connections the way that I do. This is going to be probably a six to eight episode series.

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The, the, the thing that I'm going to do first is I'm going to test pilot with my Patreon community, uh, just to kind of tweak it, make it a little bit better.

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And then eventually I will make it available here on YouTube. Okay. Um, the second project is, now this is big.

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Okay. Can, can we, uh, that was, that was, that was cheesy.

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I'm sorry. The second project is I'm working on creating a debate masterclass, a debate masterclass.

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This is going to be an online training course in debate taught by myself, uh, that has the potential to grow into an online debate community, an ongoing community.

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Uh, so I'm working with some folks behind the scenes to make this happen. Uh, the plan is to film these episodes in summer.

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So if you're looking at your calendar, this is literally right around the corner guys. Okay. And let me tell you, the sky's the limit.

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That's just the beginning. Okay. Those are just the first two projects I'm working on just in the next quarter.

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Okay. Uh, last year, if you joined me for the Patriot or for the, excuse me, for the live stream, I dreamed,

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I kind of dreamed big with all of you about what wise disciple, uh, disciple could become. We're talking about conferences.

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We're talking about inviting friends of mine to join me, um, to sit down and, and so that we can all be equipped, uh, to do the work of ministry

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Ephesians four, right. And so much more. And guess what? I'm about to hit the ground running to make all of this happen.

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So again, uh, I'm going to need your help. If you have benefited from anything that I've done here on this channel, please consider supporting me in any way, big or small, anything at all.

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I greatly appreciate it. There are different tiers with exclusive benefits. Um, and, and that's as much as I'll say,

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I hate talking about money. Uh, the link for the Patreon is below. Okay. And also would you do me a favor? Would you just pray, pray for me?

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I've never done anything like this before. I've never lived on mission, trusting the Lord this way before.

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And, uh, like I said, it's exciting. It's scary. Um, so pray for me that I'm able to continue to put one foot in front of the other, obeying the

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Lord as he guides me and my family and this ministry to whatever he has in store for us.

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And, um, and the last thing I'll say is just stick around guys.

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Things are about to get super interesting. Uh, that's all the time that I have. Thank you so much for your support. It means the world to me.