MAJOR UPDATE FOR THE PRODCAST

Hey, everybody. Welcome to the podcast. I wanted to tell you a little bit of an update for this channel because last year, I've alluded to this already before, but last year was one of the hardest years in ministry that I've ever walked through.

There was a lot going on at the Shepherd's Church, the church that I'm blessed to be the pastor of. There was a lot of different responsibilities that were growing on my end. And as a one-man show in the podcast, I'm doing both the writing of these episodes, because I do manuscript them, and I'm doing the recording of these episodes.

I'm doing the videography on these episodes, the audio processing, the post-production work, the uploading. If it gets done on the podcast, it's been me. And that's been wonderful to get this work up and off the ground.

And I've been so blessed by all of the different encouragement that you guys have given me and all of the feedback. There's so many of you who've reached out and said, we love what you're doing. Keep going because honestly, you have kept me in the fight.

There's been so many times where I was like, oh, this is so much work to do this. Is it really worth it? And every single time I've asked that question, somebody has sent me an email, a text message, giving me a phone call and said, brother, keep going.

So I have been encouraged by that. And I've been encouraged by you. So I want to thank you for that. But the reality is that the burden of ministry is only going to grow and the ability to be able to do all of this is only going to diminish.

So I'm at a sort of a weird spot when it comes to the podcast. And I've been praying for at least six months now that God would help me by providing me with someone who could come alongside of me, someone who if I needed to, I could mentor them, I could teach them, I could get them up to speed, but someone who could take the video production aspect of the show and run with it so that I could sit down and I could record these episodes and hand it off to that guy and say, hey, you take care of that.

And by the Lord's grace, he has answered that prayer in so much bigger ways than I could have ever imagined. You see, all along, for instance, you go back to the story of Abraham. Abraham is up on the mountain of Moriah.

He's getting ready to sacrifice his son. He's like, okay, God, whenever you're ready, you could show me something. And then as soon as he lifts his hand, God says, Abraham, don't do that. And then he shows him that the ram was caught in the thicket.

And the way I like to imagine that story is that as Abraham is walking up the mountain on one side, the ram is already being prepared by God, walking up the hill on the other side so that at the moment where Abraham was tested, the Lord provided.

And that is what the name of the place was, the Lord provided. And that's exactly what happened in my situation because a brother reached out to me that I've known about for like seven, eight, nine years.

Back when Reckless Love was really popular, I saw that this band came out called Jesus Wannabes who did a cover of that song in metal. And I was like, oh, that is so good. So I've really liked their music.

I've liked them. So this guy reaches out to me and I'm like, dude, this is the guy from Jesus Wannabes. And as I'm talking to him, he was like, hey, I've been listening to the podcast and I really like what you're doing.

And he introduced me to another guy who's liking what I'm doing. And both of those guys are with this group called Wrath and Grace. Wrath and Grace Studios is a studio that was once the main hub and home for Votie Bauckham's ministry, where they were doing scheduling for his conferences and videos and content.

But unfortunately, as you know, or maybe you don't, Votie Bauckham passed away last year. So Wrath and Grace has been asking some hard questions. What are we supposed to do now that Votie has gone? I've been asking some hard questions.

How am I supposed to continue the broadcast when I don't have any help? And by God's grace, I think he's knitting our stories together so that Wrath and Grace Studios is going to partner with the broadcast in order to make the broadcast not only the same as it is right now, but better.

So in the next episode that you watch, which is going to be the next episode of the Church of Smyrna, you're going to see an incredible update. The video editing is better. The graphics are better. We are getting a makeover to the broadcast.

And on top of that, it's going to take eight or seven or eight hours of the editing and all of that stuff off of my plate so that in the future, God willing, we could even make more content. The broadcast is going to become more consistent back to its original sort of weekly rotation.

The broadcast is going to be better. It's going to be richer. And by the Lord's grace, it's going to reach more people. So I wanted to give you the update that I haven't forgotten about the broadcast.

I love the broadcast, but it's been really hard on the local level. And by God's grace, he's answered my prayer. He's partnering me with a great group of people called Wrath and Grace. So you'll be able to see more of their content.

The broadcast is going to be hosted on their stuff as well. You can go to wrathandgrace .com and you can find all kinds of good content. But I just could not wait to tell you, because when you see this next episode, you're going to be able to be like, Kendall's not editing that show anymore.

That is somebody who knows what they're doing. Praise God for that. So I wanted to give you that update. And I wanted to say, thank you so much for being a subscriber. Also, if you want to help make this ministry possible, video editing is not cheap.

So by God's grace, we're able to afford it. But if you want to invest in this ministry, because you believe in what we're doing, you can become a channel member. You also can reach out to me directly if you'd rather just give to me directly.

I've got a bank account set up for the broadcast and I'm paying the out of that. So if you want to do that, no matter what, pray for the show, pray for me, pray that I would be encouraged and that I would bring the word with heat every time I bring it.

And that we would be able to see the church of Jesus Christ, learn a victorious gospel-centered rhythm of life so that we could go take dominion instead of living in defeatism. And with that, God richly bless you.

Thank you for all of your support. And we'll see you on our next episode. Until then, God richly bless you and get out of here.