Good afternoon, everyone, and welcome to today's focus for Thursday, March the 9th, 2023, at 1.38pm Central Time. Today's focus... and the church. Today's focus... and the church. I know you're not understanding what I'm saying. Today's focus is... and the church. Okay, let me try it again. Today's focus is... and the church. Okay, okay, okay. I can do this. I can do this. Today's focus is VOGNEW and... Okay, I'm getting close. I'm getting close. Okay, okay, okay, okay, okay. Let me do this. Let me do this. I need to slap myself really good. All right. Okay. There we go. All right. There we go. All right. Today's focus is Fox News. and the church. And as soon as I say that, well, I should have slapped myself because I know I'm making a horrible mistake. Because what I'm going to attempt to do, well, I'm not going to accomplish. What I want to accomplish, I'm not going to accomplish. So, I'm doomed to failure right from the start because everyone who hears this is going to greatly misunderstand what I'm trying to do. And all they're going to hear is Fox News. They heard Fox News and now they're waiting. Okay, what is he gonna say about Fox News? He better say it's wonderful. He better say it's great. He better say that it's the, you know, it's the oasis and the desert of misinformation. It's the bastion of truth. It is the citadel of correctness. It's Fox News. I better say everything positive and wonderful about it because if I even hint, Hint! Hint! At anything negative, ho ho, I'm gonna be met with swift criticism. So I know that all I'm going to really accomplish in this episode is to ensure that my email box is filled with people calling me names, telling me I'm stupid, telling me I don't understand, telling me I don't get it, telling me I'm a moron. So maybe that's what I want today. Maybe I just want an email box filled with people telling me how dumb and stupid and I don't get it and I need to quit. Maybe that's what I want because everything in my brain tells me don't do this, but then everything in my brain tells me all of the reasons that I shouldn't do this are the exact reasons I should because I think the fact that I know this is going to create controversy and it's going to make everyone angry at me is proof of the entire concept and the entire point that I'm going to try to prove in this episode. So in a roundabout way, everyone at everyone's attack will just simply prove my point. Now, I know that somewhat kind of sets me up as I win no matter what, but I'm not trying to set it up that I will win. It's just that sometimes the way people respond sometimes proves my point better than anything I could do. Let me give you an example. When people get very upset with me, when I claim that, hey, obviously we don't have power to be perfect as Christians. And obviously if we look to our life to prove whether we're saved or not saved, we're always going to prove that we're not saved. People will get furious. People will get angry. and then they will email me and then in their emails will demonstrate clearly a sinful nature, clearly they will demonstrate arrogance, pride, being judgmental, like they will in many cases demonstrate how sinful they are while trying to tell me that their life proves that they're saved and I'm like well your email proves that you're not saved but that's That's neither here nor there. Sometimes it's just weird how people will respond in such a way that actually proves the point that they're trying to argue against. So, I think in some ways this is going to do that. So, here's what I'm going to attempt to do. I'm going to explain myself. Will probably repeat myself a hundred times. we're going to be talking about Fox News and I don't know if you've been paying any attention, but there's a lot of drama and scandal surrounding Fox News right now. They're being sued for like over a billion dollars because of what happened. Well, with the election, they made claims that the election was stolen and they put forth this claim over and over and over and they're being sued for this and they made accusations against a computer voting system, Dominion voting system. They made all kinds of claims and accusations and it was, and they just kept, they doubled down on the lies. Well, now they're being sued and because they're being sued, now we're getting some information from this lawsuit, from this court proceedings. We're getting depositions and we're getting information and we find, we're finding out that On camera, many of those on Fox News were going, the election was stolen and was putting forth a narrative, but behind the camera. They were like, well, this whole thing is garbage and they knew it wasn't true. Meaning they knew it wasn't true, yet they were turning on the camera saying what they knew not to be true. They knew that the whole election was stolen thing was a lie behind the cameras, but on the cameras they were going on with the idea that it was. And this has raised all kinds of questions about journalistic integrity. Is Fox News really news or is it simply entertainment? Why, but, but there's also all of this proof that no matter how much information comes out, the average Fox News viewer is more than content to say, I'm going to listen to Fox News. Fox News is right. Everyone else is a lie. And it's like, it doesn't, even if it comes out that, wait a minute, these people knowingly lied to you. They knew what they were saying was a lie. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. They're saying what I want to hear. Now, we could have a whole discussion about Fox News at this point, right? But what I want to do is take this controversy, this scandal, this major questions about journalistic integrity in 2023, and I simply want to use this not to talk about Fox News, not to talk about Republicans, definitely not to talk about Donald Trump, not to talk about any of that. I want to use this to talk about your church and my church and the church at large in the United States of America. That's what I want to do. But see, everyone's, all they hear now, they've heard Fox News, and they're like, no, no, no, no, no, they're lying. Fox News didn't lie. Fox News, they, or the people on Fox News, they never said that. It was taken out of context. Whatever, however people want to defend Fox News, look, be, look, just, Email me to your heart's content to defend Fox News, that it's the greatest thing, you know, that it basically dropped from heaven and that all they ever do is speak the truth. You can send me all of your Fox propaganda. That's fine if you need to do that. It's newsifatyahoo.com. But if you do that, you're missing the complete point. And ultimately, I don't really, I don't care if you love Fox News, wonderful. I don't watch it. I don't support it. I don't like it. I've got my own reasons and enough, and especially the scandals, part of the reasons I don't like it and I get frustrated with it. But that's neither here nor there. That's not the point of this broadcast. The point is this scandal Whether you believe it or don't believe it, let's just say hypothetically the scandal is pointing to something that actually occurred, I think it challenged us about the church. Because I think the church has a similar problem. Oh, I really do. I think the church has a Fox News problem. Not that the fact that most of the people sitting in the pew watch Fox News, that's a different kind of problem. But I think the church has the same kind of problem as Fox News. And I will explain that as we listen to some audio from a news program talking about the Fox News scandal. Again, I'm not here to get into all of this news program and what they're saying is true or false. I just want them to create the narrative, and then I'm gonna use this narrative to talk about the church. I hope you so much understand this. I hope you understand this, okay? I'm going to do my best. I know, man, I know I'm attempting. It's a fool's errand. I know, I know I'm making a bad mistake in doing this, but that's okay. That's okay. That's okay. That's okay. I'm used to mistakes. So I'm just going to proceed. Where I shouldn't and and hopefully someone somewhere will get what i'm trying to say because I think Because this is such in the news right now that it just serves as a perfect Illustration it really does it really does it really and I hope I hope that will make sense All right. So here we go. Now. I know this is a today's focus supposed to be done in 15 minutes We're already at 10 and we're just getting started. So this is going to go way long So, I don't even care if I'm messing everything up. I don't really care, right? I don't care how many things I mess up. I'm committed to this because I think this is important. So, here we go. This is a little bit of, well, what I heard early this morning listening to podcast. And as soon as I started hearing some of this, I was like, all I could think about was Christianity, the church. Christianity, the church. Christianity, the church. Christianity, the church. while everyone else heard, how dare you say this about Fox News? What are you doing? Fox News is the greatest thing that's ever existed. And just everyone calm down. I'm thinking about the church, but here we go. We also now have a trove of new documents related to Fox's other massive and destructive deception that would be Donald Trump's big lie. These are some, not all, the newly released exhibits in Dominion Voting System's defamation lawsuit against Fox News. Now, Dominion has been, through its legal filings in this case, revealing all sorts of evidence showing that all kinds of folks inside Fox, the hosts, the management, knew they were broadcasting lies to their audience in the wake of the 2020 election, but they did it anyway and continue to do it to keep their viewers and their shareholders happy. They knew they were broadcasting lies. They did it anyway. They kept doing it to keep their viewers and shareholders happy. Oh, man. Oh, that to me says so much about the church. I know you're gonna disagree with me, but you'll see why in just a minute, why I'm gonna kind of continue to make this. But Fox News, they were broadcasting lies. They knew they were lies behind the scenes. They're like, this is crazy. This is garbage. This, I can't stay. What is happening? But on camera, they were like, ladies and gentlemen, Fox breaking news alert. The election has been stolen. Widespread conspiracy to take away the election from Donald Trump. Oh, you better keep tuning in. You keep spending hour and hour and hour and hour watching. So we have the viewer so we can spend, uh, charge more money to our advertisers. Come on, keep watching, keep watching, keep watching. And you watched, they sold the advertisements, they made money. And what did you get? Let's continue. Now, of course, patient zero of the big lie that Fox spread far and wide was Donald Trump. But to the extent there was some initial actual source, some plausible origin of the it was stolen, it was rigged lie, it turns out it was just one apparently disturbed person. We now have a copy of the email. This is the email that Sidney Powell, that's the Trump lawyer who is largely responsible for spreading election conspiracy theories, forwarded to Fox host Maria Bartiromo. This was written by a person who goes by the name Mars and it's long, I won't read all of it to you, but this person claims that they can quote, Time travel in a semi-conscious state when I'm awake, I see what others don't see and hear what others don't hear. The wind, capitalized, tells me I'm a ghost but I don't believe it. Now, Mars goes on to make outlandish claims about Dominion voting machines in particular. I'll quote a little bit here. A piece of code was inserted such that once ballots were fed into the database for tabulation, up to 3% of votes for Mr. Trump would automatically switch to Mr. Biden. This was capped at 3% because it was supposedly determined that anything higher than that would raise suspicions. That 3% would be enough to tip a tight race. Also, throw in a deranged story about Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia saying that, and again I quote here, he was purposefully killed at the annual Bohemia Grove camp, a club for members of the mega group during a week-long human hunting expedition. I gotta say, in journalism you get stuff like this all the time, and people will track you down, they'll send you letters or emails with this kind of thing, and you learn to basically disregard it. And full disclosure, I get emails like that all the time with people claiming that God told them this or they time-traveled or they were abducted by aliens or they were given information about this or they were given information about that or You know god told me I need to marry them or all just I mean I get some crazy crazy crazy crazy crazy things So I so and you just kind of just like okay, whatever, you know You just kind of dismiss it and you move on you got to go or or you get crazy comments posted on you different platforms You can get some crazy. I I mean I I could go through the different things I have received over the years I have received crazy things over the years, and I'm a nobody in the middle of nowhere. So I know news agencies get these kinds of emails as well. Conspiratorial, this and that. You get it. Now what you typically have to do is look at it and go, oh, wow, okay, all right, well, let's set that to the side. Now you may go, oh, that's an interesting point, and you go research it, but you get emails like this. You get these kinds of things. And that brings me to one of the many thoughts I have on this whole thing. Now, it is hard to decide which kind of reaction to this is worse. Now, there are people, and we see from the evidence in this suit, within Fox News with enough functioning, baseline, cognitive, and critical faculties to be able to tell the person who talks to the wind can time travel may not be the most credible source for such a wild accusation, but still decided to go along with it anyway because that is what their audience wanted to hear. That's one category. That includes- Right? Enough functioning critical skills to go, well, we probably shouldn't use this source, but we're going to go along with it anyway because this is what our viewers What? Just stay with me here. Let's continue. There's people like Fox host Tucker Carlson and news corporation chairman Robert Murdoch. And then there are those who apparently bought it, like earnestly. Maria Bartiromo, host of a morning show on Fox Business and Fox News, seems to be in that latter category. She was one of Fox's biggest promoters of the big lie, and I have to say, credit where due, I guess, based on this new evidence, she wasn't lying. It wasn't in bad faith. Apparently, she truly believed it. In a text conversation with former Trump advisor and podcast host Steve Bannon on November 10th, 2020, Bartiromo wrote, quote, OMG, I'm so depressed, I can't take it. I want to see massive fraud exposed. Will he be able to turn this around? I told my team we are not allowed to say preselect at all. Bannon replies, 71 million voters will never accept Biden. This process is to destroy his presidency before it starts, if it even starts. That's an interesting tale, isn't it? Bart Romer writes, but I'm scared and sad. Well, sometimes we all are. And Bannon replies, you are our fighter. Enough with the sad, we need you. The real key to this whole story, to all of it, and again, we're just going through the hundreds of pages of documents right now in real time, I think is revealed by this exchange. It's Maria Barrera's producer, and it's a text. So you had some who really believed it, who really believed it, okay, all right, and just, hey, this whole process, we just wanna destroy the Biden, that's all we wanna do is destroy Biden and his presidency, Nothing else really matters, right? So we're getting the idea of what was happening. Our audience doesn't want to hear about a peaceful transition. So we're not going to talk to them about a peaceful transition. We're going to talk to them about the lie, because we've got to give the people what they want. Just stay with me. Basically, the Rosetta Stone that translates why Fox did what it did, because that producer who wrote that is 100% correct. The viewers did not want Fox to tell them the truth, that Donald Trump lost the election. Maria Bartiromo understood that, as did Rupert Murdoch, Fox CEO Suzanne Scott, all the other hosts from Sean Hannity to Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingram. Their audience did not want to hear about, and I quote again, a peaceful transition of power to Joe Biden. And so Fox made sure they didn't hear about it. And guess what? we didn't get a peaceful transition for the first time since Fort Sumter. David Filkenflik is an NPR News Media correspondent, author of Murdoch's World, The Last of the Old. Now they go on to say a lot more in this episode. This is from Chris Hayes on his program. And I'll just give you a little bit, well, there's a lot more I could go into this. There's a lot more. There's more clips here that I wanna play from it, but I'm not gonna play because I think I've already established the basic narrative that I want you to see. Fox News, knew that what they were saying was a lie. They continued to broadcast said lie because they knew what the viewers wanted. They had to give the viewers what they want. They had to say what they wanted to hear. And my question then is this. Now, here's my transition from Fox News. And look, I've got 36 more minutes of audio from that taking it all apart. There's, there's a lot there and we may play some more, more of it and, and another broadcast. But the point is it establishes the basic narrative. Hey, some in Fox news may have believed it. Others in Fox news knew right out that it was a lie and that it was crazy, but they went with it. And why did they go with it? They went with it for one specific reason. reason, because they knew this is what the viewers wanted, and if they didn't give the viewers what they wanted, the viewers would leave. If the viewers leave, they lose money, they no longer become the number one news station in the country, and then they begin to lose advertising dollars, which is detrimental to their bottom line and to their shareholders. So they gave the people what they wanted. Now I feel sometimes church is nothing more than the same game. It's rigged. What people, people will only, people will stay in your church until you say something they don't want, say something they don't like, and they will leave. The church has to constantly be finding ways to please the people, to give the people what... Oh, oh, wait, wait, wait, wait. Okay, your kids aren't happy? All right, we'll get a new youth director. We'll get a new youth program. Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. You're not happy? We don't have enough singing? We'll do more singing. Wait, wait, wait. The sermon's too long? We'll cut the... Wait, wait, you need this? You have to figure out what your demographic is. You got to figure out what team are we. Are we team Reformed? Are we teamed Arminian? Are we team Pelagian? And you got to figure out your team and then you just deliver the goods to your team. You keep them happy. And you don't raise certain questions. There may be things in the text of scripture, and you're like, well, that can make people uncomfortable. And we're not going to deal with that problem. And we're not going to deal with that problem. And we're not going to deal with the fact that there's a lot of inconsistency here. No, we're not going to deal with any of the troubles, any of the difficulties. What we're going to do is just simply give people what they want. We give them a good experience. And why do you think the church has a tendency to do that? Well, just listen to this. This is very important. I think this is very important, all right? Here we go. According to a study, in 2017, U.S. churches received, you ready? This is in 2017 alone, the United States churches received $124 billion in donations. In 2017 alone, churches received over $124 billion in donations. All right? The average congregation's revenue being about $169,000. Now, what does most of this money go to? Most of this money goes to, really, on personnel. Most of the money goes to supporting personnel. Now if most of the money, almost 50% of all money in a church goes to paying staff, personnel, salaries. All right, so now think, all of this money comes pouring into the church. Most of that money goes to making sure those people have a job. So guess what? As a person who, if you're in the position of leadership and that's your job, you gotta realize, wait a minute, money goes down, that directly impacts what? My job! Most of the money coming into the church goes to paying for my salary. So if I lose people, I lose the very money that supports my salary. Please note the system that's created here. All this money comes into the church, most of the money pays for salary. Not for ministry, for salary. And you've got to look at what you're actually getting for that salary. So what does the pastor do? I gotta, okay, okay, what kind of church are we? Oh, let's figure out what kind of church we are. So we write down, okay, what kind of church are we? Are we middle-of-the-road evangelical? Are we liberal? Are we conservative? Are we fundamentalist? Are we reformed? Are we, what are we? Okay, now once we've got a clear identity to what we are, now we market that to death, because we got to get the people in. They bring in money, my salary gets paid. And now what do I have to do? I got to do everything I can to right the ship. I got to do everything I can to keep everyone happy. I got to try to appease as many people as possible, play the politician, kiss the babies, shake their hands, keep everyone happy so we can keep this entire thing functioning. I just got to keep doing what I have to do to keep it functioning. And the church becomes nothing more than a corporation where you're trying to please your customer so that they will continue to spend money so that you will maintain not only the building. In fact, if you look at it, almost, in fact, I can break down the percentages here. Uh, 70, about 74%. This is crazy. 74% of all money that comes into a church goes to personnel and the building, the faculties, right? The facilities of, why am I saying faculties? Okay. The facilities. I don't know what I'm doing. I see. Make a mistake. There we go. So, uh, so I'm looking at the percentage that would be. See, that would be, yeah, oh, yeah, basically a 70 something percent, around 70 something percent, it would be all the money goes to facilities and personnel. Personnel is the greatest amount, facilities is a smaller amount. Yes, about 74%, looking at it, if I'm doing my math right, 74%. 74% of all money goes into a church, is paying salaries and keeping the facilities going. Now, what do you have to do? You've got to make sure you support, you got to wear your team colors, right? I've got kind of a sweat jacket on right now. Like here's my colors, right? I got my color. It's like, you know, it's like someone wearing their, their, you know, football jersey or their, their favorite basketball team, favorite football that you got to rep your team. I got to go up in that pulpit and I got to sell what we believe. I got to make sure I keep everyone happy. There's no room for questioning, struggling, thinking, doubting. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. No, we gotta make it clear. We gotta make sure we give everyone those nice, little, well-organized sermons that don't raise, and even if there's some major issue in the text, and we're like, man, I don't know what's going on here. What in the world was Abraham doing with Hagar? That is some disturbing stuff going on here, because there's no way she could give consent. This could lead to, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You don't bring that up in the pulpit. You just be very careful what you do and what you say. And even if it's a troubling text, you've got to paint over it in a nice, comfortable way. You got to keep everyone happy. You got to keep everyone comfortable. You got to play the game. Why? So that we can bring in money that 73 to 74% goes to simply having a building and having people on the staff. I mean, just think about that. All of that money just goes to maintaining that. That doesn't even, none of that money even goes to say internet ministry, outreach. No, all of the money goes to literally buildings and personnel, facilities and personnel. That's when I saw that statistic and I started looking at the study, I was just, I was dumbfounded. Like, what are we getting for that? But you see, it creates a situation. Fox News found themselves in a difficult situation. Our viewers don't want the truth. Our viewers don't want the uncomfortable truth that Trump lost an election. They don't want that. They want to hear that it was stolen. They want to hear that we should not have a peaceful transfer of power. What they want is marching orders. What they want is fighting words. They want controversy. They want anger. They want frustration. And we're going to give it to them. How much does the church simply try to give people what they want? Now, I know you say, well, my pastor doesn't always give me what I want. He steps on my toes sometimes. I feel conviction. Sometimes people want to feel that conviction, but it's conviction on what? So you'll be convicted as long as it goes along with your way of thinking. You're like, all right, right, tell me that. I need to be convicted by that. But the minute anything deviates from what you want, for what makes you comfortable, for what you think, what goes along with your team, the minute there's deviation, There is controversy. There is an unrest. There is unhappiness. And then that can spread. Next thing you know, you can end up in a church split. Next thing you can know, you can have a breakaway. Next thing you know, the pastor is being pushed out. This stuff happens all the time. After all of these years in ministry, sometimes I just want to get on the phone and say, okay people, please tell me what you want this Sunday and I'll make sure that I deliver it with a smiling face. You'll be more than happy. And just think about, we all want that. Look, we all want that every day in our lives, right? We all, everybody wants to hear what we want to hear. Nobody likes to hear what they don't like to hear. We know that. That's how we operate. You don't like to go to work and hear what you don't want to hear. You don't like to come home from work and hear from your spouse what you don't want to hear. You don't want to hear from your kids what you don't want. We all, that's the way we operate. So obviously we're going to bring that into the church. So, what do you want in a Sunday sermon? You wanna make sure that it's according to your beliefs, your ideology, you don't wanna be challenged in any major way. Now, any challenge that happens has to happen within a certain parameters. There are parameters. You deviate from that, there's drama. If you're like, well, you know, our side, we hold to this doctrinal belief, but there are some issues. Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Don't do that. Don't do that. Don't do that. I know the scriptures say this, but this leads to lots of problems. This leads to lots of questions. I know the Bible says in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, but if we're honest with each other, that's a major troubling problematic verse. Why is it a troubling and problematic verse? Because an all-powerful, all-knowing God created a world knowing exactly how it was going to turn out. Knowing that children were going to be molested, women were going to be raped, there was going to be genocide, racism, murder. So how do we understand? Don't make me uncomfortable. Don't make me uncomfortable. Come on, come on. Give me a three point sermon. Give me something simple. Come on. When are we going to have a fellowship? When are we going to have a potluck? Come on, come on, come on. What's the next program? So much of the church, all of its activities and works are simple. If you think about it, so much of what the church is doing is simply trying to ensure that we bring in new people. Maintain the people that we have, make up for any loss of people who leave, because people leave all the time for whatever reason. People are constantly leaving churches so that we can maintain. And what do we have to do? Maintain a certain level so that we can maintain a certain level of income coming in. So how real can you be? How genuine can you be? I'll give you an example. There's a big controversy. There was a pastor, and this was on the Christian Post and a lot of other websites, so I'll just simplify the story. The pastor was giving an illustration, telling a story, when his wife was out of town, him and a friend was, I think, at a restaurant, and this woman came up to him, basically propositioning him that they could have physical relations. Now he did not have physical relations with the woman. He did not have sex with the woman. So on one hand you would think like That's a good thing, but guess what? No, no, no, no. Even though he didn't have sex with the woman, he had to ultimately issue an apology because the way he told the story. Now, you could, I can understand, you could say, well, you're married. By telling the story this way, you can make your wife feel like you really could make your wife feel bad. And I can understand that there could be some concerns with it. But even though he didn't sleep with the woman, it didn't matter. It didn't matter. It didn't matter because he told the story. He told the story of this woman walked up and he said something along the lines, everything was in the right place. She was amazing. She was, I don't know if he used the word beautiful, but just like he was trying to let everyone know this woman was desirable. And I didn't do it. Now, you could argue, well, wait a minute, is he patting himself on the back? I understand there could be all the criticisms. But the point is, even though he didn't do it, still wasn't good enough. He still, because he told the story the wrong way. It's almost like as a preacher, as you have to, you have to, it's like a politician. There's no room for error. You've got to make sure you state everything an exact way. Any deviation and any gaffe, any mess up could be the end of your political career. As a pastor, you can't necessarily be real. You can't necessarily be honest. You can't necessarily be organic and truthful. You got to be rehearsed. It's got to be produced. It's got to be edited. It's got to be filtered. It's got to be said in a certain way. You got to look a certain way. Look, we had someone come to our church. They thought the teaching was great, but they would never come back because guess what, ladies and gentlemen, I wasn't wearing a tie for crying out loud. So, see, I've got to dress a certain way, look a certain way, talk a certain way, don't move. Someone complained because I moved too much. Other people complained because I raised my voice too much, because I used too much humor. I've had every complaint in the world issued at me, given at me. You just name it, and you're just like, oh, what? I can't do anything right. I can't do any. You just give up. You're like, what's the point? The church in many ways operates just like any other corporation. What is your brand? You got to figure out your brand. You got to sell that brand. You got to stay faithful to that brand and you got to find the right demographic for that brand. And then you've got to make sure you keep giving people what they want. because if you don't, they leave. And when 73 to 74% of all income goes to personnel and facilities, not faculty, facilities, okay? Yeah, okay, I'm saying it right. I think I'm saying it right. Who cares anymore? The point, see why I can, I shouldn't even be a Christian podcaster because I don't say things right. The point is, I am having a little bit of fun. I am having a little bit of fun. I'm trying to have a little bit of fun. The point is, you gotta maintain. And if you don't maintain... So it's kind of what a lot of, you hear some of the same thing when it comes to podcasters and YouTube creators and content creators, whether on Instagram, influencers. You've got to build what your brand is and you've got to find those people and you've got to keep them happy. Why? Because in many of those cases, those podcasters If they're monetizing their podcasts, they can't lose listeners. If you lose listeners, you're gonna lose money. And if you lose money, well then guess what? You're not gonna be able to support yourself with your podcast. Now, the good thing about me is I currently, my livelihood is not dependent on this podcast, so I can say whatever I want to say. But the minute this podcast came, like, all right, guys, every month I would have to say, guys, look, I need to bring in $1,000. I need to bring in $1,000 a month to pay for everything. Please support me now. If either I couldn't raise that much money, or if I raise that much money, then I would have to figure out exactly what I have to do each month to raise that much. That would be horrifying, because I would know, oh, don't talk about that. That always ticks everyone off. Oh, people didn't really like that. I would be looking at the numbers every day. I would have my notebook and my pencil out, and I'd be like, oh, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. We saw a 10% decrease in that series. All right, put an X through that, baby. Oh, look at this. This series had a 20% increase. Oh, I know what we need to do. We need to talk about scandal. We need to talk about controversy. Oh, I need to have hot takes. Hot takes increases the audience by 30%. That's what happens on podcasting. Well, the same thing can happen at the church. Fox News went with a lie, knowing it was a lie behind the cameras. They knew it was a lie, but they knew that this is what the viewers want. And if the viewers don't get what they want, they're gonna go to Newsmax, they're gonna go to what one, what is it? OAA, I think. One American, I can't remember what it's called. OAN, I think. One American News, something along that line. And they're gonna go to these other platforms. And Fox is like, no, no, no, no, no. Guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, guys, we gotta give the people what they want. Who cares about truth? Now, I think in many churches, it's still about, it's not the pursuit of truth. It's like, here's what we believe and we're not gonna question and we're not gonna deviate. We're gonna give the people what they want. Is it really a place for honest searching, honest questioning, honest struggle, honestly working through the text, no matter whether it leads us in a direction we wanna go or we don't wanna go, dealing with questions, struggling, changing, growing, Like, is there a place for that? I try to make this podcast like that. I try, right? It's not perfect, it's ugly, it's messy. We stumble, we fumble, but we deal with anything whether, no matter where it leads us. Now, again, you know why I can do that? I don't monetize. I don't monetize. I don't monetize. This podcast is not monetized. I don't have to worry about sponsors. Don't have to worry if I'm gonna tick them off. I don't, my livelihood is not yet dependent upon this podcast. If it ever becomes dependent upon this podcast, I know what I'm going to do. If my livelihood ever becomes dependent upon this podcast, I'm ending this podcast because I don't think I could, I would never be able to pull that off with a theological podcast because I'm gonna tick someone off at some point. I mean, I got kicked off Christian radio for crying out loud. I know how well I would last in the Christian world if my livelihood depended upon it. I would immediately rebrand a podcast and I would do something probably about music or something along those lines. I would try to find a new way and I would monetize that. I've already proven I can do that really, really, really, really, really, really, really well. I mean, in fact, I could probably be making some pretty good money because I took a secular podcast all the way to number one, the number one trending podcast in the United States of America and we finally got beat out by Michelle Obama. I know I can figure that out. Well, at least I think I can. I mean, I have at least a small example of my success. But see, because there, hey, I have a greater chance of possible success. With theology, I would have to just become a shell of my former self. And I'd be like, okay, guys, what do you wanna hear today? Oh, who are we mad at today? Oh, Rick Warren, bad. Okay, we'll talk bad about bad Rick Warren. Okay, who are we happy with today? Okay, we're happy with John MacArthur. Everyone, John MacArthur is great. Okay, who are we, like, I would just have to follow the winds. and go, which direction are we going? And a lot of people may not feel that that's the way it is, but I'm telling you, church follows a lot of these trends. I'm not saying they don't ever speak truth. I'm saying that they have to do it in such a way never to challenge, never to question, and to make everyone comfortable because the minutes, look, I don't know if you know this, as soon as someone doesn't like what they hear and they're not comfortable, they're gone. They're gone out the door. Boom. The minute someone doesn't like what you're saying on a podcast, boom, they're gone. I got a long email from someone on YouTube. This is my last attempt and I'm no longer going to ever listen to you again because blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay, all right, well, I've made you unhappy. Who's next? It was a long email. And basically, I don't get it, and I don't understand, and I'm preoccupied with this, and I repeat myself too much, and I do this. And they had a million criticisms for me, a million, a million criticisms. And I'm like, oh, you're right, I'm a piece of trash. I got it, thank you, thank you for stopping by. Please move on to the next podcast where you can tell them how they do everything wrong. Sometimes as a pastor, that's what it's like. But see, it's easy to say, Like, if your livelihood is not dependent on you being a pastor, you can look at people and go, yeah, so, leave. Like, go, fine. Never gonna be what you want me to be. But if your livelihood's dependent upon it, And you're like, well, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. You know what, I think you're right. Okay, we'll make some changes here. You know what, you're right. Well, maybe I can shorten my sermons a little bit. You know what, you're right. We probably need a little bit more music. You know what, you're right. Probably need a little bit more prayer. You know, you probably need some more scripture. You're right. And you just kind of go along to get along. But is the church supposed to operate in such a capacity? Is a news agency for crying out loud supposed to operate in that capacity? They're like, hey, we know we're lying, but we're going to keep lying because we know what our viewers want. What? If your viewers don't want the truth, then you may want to tell them to go tune into a channel that airs fiction because you're a news channel and truth is all that matters. I don't know. What do you think? And isn't it crazy that 70 something percent of money, at least according to that study in 2017, for churches go to pass to the staff and to the facilities. Like, that raises to me a whole question. What are we really getting? Like, if all that money, over, like what, $125 billion to churches every year? Look at all the money that goes to churches and ask yourself, what are you really getting there? Now, sometimes I'm just kind of like, I don't know, like the whole institutionalized church, I understand it in some ways, but in other ways, I'm like, it's almost just like, it's like a, just a never ending, like money comes in, money goes out, money, and what are we getting for the money that is all going into those churches? What is the quality of truly digging in and studying and like, I don't know. So, you say, what is today's focus? Today's focus is, do you think the church really is a place of the pursuit of truth, dealing with every issue and difficulty, or do you think the church has become basically giving people what they want so that they can maintain the income so they can maintain the staff and the building? There's going to be lots of disagreements about all of this. I know. Email me, newsifatyahoo.com. Newsifatyahoo.com. That's newsifatyahoo.com. That is your today's focus for Thursday. And if I said Tuesday in my opening, I apologize. Thursday, March the 9th, 2023. you