Looking at our world from a theological perspective, this is the Theology Central Podcast. Making theology central. perfect timing No, not it. It's not perfect timing because you're tuning in to listen to me right now I mean, I guess that is perfect timing, but I started this broadcast at the perfect time and Why is that? Why why why is it the perfect time? Well because I can say good afternoon everyone. It is Wednesday July the 23rd 2025 it is currently 12 PM central time, high noon here in West Texas. And when it's high noon in West Texas, you know what you do? You put on your holster, you get your guns and you go to somewhere for a shootout. No, you don't do that. That's no, no, no. I'm joking. but it's noontime here in West Texas. And when I first started the live broadcast, it was like 1159 AM. I'm like, do I say good morning? Do I say good afternoon? Do I just ignore everything? But I can say good afternoon, everyone. And as I've already said, let's just do this properly. Good afternoon, everyone. It is Wednesday, July the 23rd, 2025. It is now 12.01 p.m. Central Time, and I'm coming to you live from the Theology Central studio located right here in Abilene, Texas. So instead of putting on a holster and grabbing guns and going to have a shootout, well, we're going to have a discussion about kind of something interesting going on in the podcasting world. and I think it may be something for the Church to consider. At least, in my mind, it's something the Church should consider, and we'll talk about it. So let's start with this. I want to give you a kind of a breakdown of the prevailing consensus in mainstream Christianity today. I want to kind of break down kind of this prevailing consensus within mainstream Christianity. Now I've got to make, I've got to speak very clearly here. I am not saying there aren't exceptions to this. I'm not saying there aren't churches and ministries that do this differently. I am talking about what the prevailing consensus is within mainstream Christianity today. and I'm taking this from research, trends, and what we see in actual practice. So that's what I'm basing this on. I also asked artificial intelligence to verify some of this to see if my idea of the prevailing consensus is correct, or am I missing something? Artificial intelligence agreed that my perspective seems to be fairly accurate. Now, as soon as I say that, someone's going to email me, oh, but I know of this church, or I know of this ministry. I am not saying there aren't exceptions. I am saying, again, for clarity's sake, I'm speaking about the prevailing consensus, all right? The prevailing view within Christendom is that, and this is true of most evangelical churches, most believe, or a majority believe, that sermons should last somewhere between 20 to 35 minutes, and anything over 40 minutes is considered long. If you go 40 minutes plus, that's considered long. And in many cases, the pastor will apologize for going long. So if you get to that 40-minute mark, it's like people are going to start getting uncomfortable. They're going to be looking at their watch. They're going to start fidgeting. They may start putting stuff away. 40 minutes and you're in trouble. And many churches, I know there are exceptions, but that 40-minute rule is pretty much like you don't want to go over that. And if you do, it better not be past 45 minutes. You may get a five-minute grace period, but over that, you're going to really start pushing your luck, right? That's the prevailing view. If you look to church growth and seeker-sensitive models, so church growth and seeker-sensitive models, and you could think of churches like Willow Creek, Saddleback, other churches like that, and I know some of those are kind of dated and not as relevant as they used to be, but I'm just pulling names that you would associate with those kinds of movements. If you go back and look at what they promoted, they would emphasize brevity for accessibility. Be brief so that you can be more accessible to more people. Right? People are not showing up for a 50 minute, 55 minute university level lecture. People are not there for an academic philological discussion. They are there for, and then however it's classified, they want their needs met. They want to feel something spiritual. They want to feel encouraged. They want to feel something, however it would be described, right? And remember whether and I completely obviously disagree with what willow creek did what saddleback did all of those models I've criticized them for 30 years. So I you know, I don't have any I don't have any agreement with them. But to be fair, they did do a lot of research and study to try to say, here's what the people want. And if we're going to be a successful church, you have to give the people what they want. Now we can yell at that and scream at that and condemn that, but that overall philosophy, it's at work in almost every church. Because if you don't give the people what they want, your church is not going to survive. Every pastor, every church has to, no matter what their opinion is, they have to, to some level, give the people what they want. Or they've got to get rid of all of those people so that they can go find the people who want what they're giving. And that can—well, you don't survive very long doing that. I know that from experience. One of the things I— My philosophy was, oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Church is never about what the people want. Church is about taking the text of Scripture and digging in and trying to figure out what it says, regardless of what anybody wants. We're not here for fun, food, fellowship, and activities. We're here to understand theology, doctrine, church history. And so I decided not to give the people what they want, and now I was very successful for what, you know, I could think about 15 years I was successful, probably for 15 years. I think wildly successful considering the church was located in the middle of nowhere, Texas. I mean, at one point the place was completely packed out and we were considering purchasing—there was at least discussion of purchasing property across the street for possible parking. It was at least entertained briefly. Well, but overall, I didn't give the people what they want. they left, and they left, and they left, and they left, and they left, and they left. And now, you know, we're basically at the end of that. So my experiment failed. So we can condemn those seeker-sensitive models, but every church to some level is like, what do the people want? Attendance is down. What can we do to bring attendance up? I mean, those are the kinds of considerations. Barna and Pew research shows that most Protestant services last 60 to 90 minutes total, that's the entire service, with the sermon usually taking up 30 minutes or less. So in many cases, people want more singing. Right? They want more of this, they want more of that, but they don't want 45 minute sermons. If something has to be cut, they want the sermon cut. I remember early on in my ministry, people getting upset because we weren't singing enough. And I'm like, okay, well, I can give you 30 minutes of singing. I can give you 45 minutes of singing, but my sermon is going to say the exact same length. And guess what? They didn't want that. They wanted singing at the expense of the sermon. Now, if you would have talked to them, they would have been like, I want a church that stands on the word of God. I want a church that preaches the word of God. And they would have talked a big game. Come down to it, they didn't want the sermon. They wanted more music. And I would ask them, well, if I give you more music and less sermon, what about the people across the pew from you who want more sermon and less music? Of course, they never have an answer because people just want what they want. But once again, there's another source saying the sermon is, again, that 30-minute. That's kind of the sweet spot. Pastors are often told to respect the clock, especially in multi-service churches or live stream settings. Gotta respect the clock. Watch the clock. Don't go over the clock. The clock is God. Follow the clock. Instead of worrying about the text in front of you and the complications the text presents, the questions it presents. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. We don't care about that. What we want is time. Sermons tend to be short. So what is the result of this consensus within most of Christianity? Preaching, I think this is fair to say, preaching is often shaped not by theological need or exegetical depth. It is shaped by time constraints rooted in cultural assumptions about attention span. Please hear that again. This consensus within Christendom that sermons have to be somewhat short. Again, 40 minutes, you're already probably going to get yourself in trouble. 45 minutes, you're going to get complaints. Probably 50 to an hour, you're probably going to get fired. In some churches, there's always those exceptions. But typically, preaching is shaped not by theological need or exegetical depth, but it is shaped—now this is important—by time constraints. And these time constraints are rooted in cultural assumptions about attention span. See, the prevailing cultural assumption that within culture, within Christendom, is that people have short attention spans today. These kids today, they can't listen more than five minutes. Them and their TikToks, them and their... And look, that's not a new cultural assumption. My generation, we were told that our attention spans were being destroyed by MTV and that we were not going to be able to pay attention and we wouldn't read books and we wouldn't read novels and we were going to be all ruined and it was going to be the end of the world and our culture was not going to survive because MTV is rotting the brains of the youth. Okay, of course, every generation screams about something. So now it's this, but that same cultural assumption still prevails today, the people's attention span. So the church buys into it. Hey, hey, hey, you know, come on now. The people can only handle so much. You can't go that in depth. You'll lose your people. Now, what that typically translates is you'll lose them, meaning they're going to leave your church and you can't lose anybody because you need them or, well, you don't have enough money to survive. And I'm very aware of that. That's why my church is where it is today, because, well, you lose people, don't have money, the end is in sight. Not only are sermons short, this is again, we're talking about kind of what's happening within Christianity at large. Teaching times are limited. Most churches offer Sunday morning and sometimes a Wednesday night or small group midweek. And that's it. Even in churches that value teaching, multi-hour Bible study blocks are very rare. Catechesis You just refer to it as theological instruction or theological education, we'll use those terms, is often outsourced to parachurch ministries if offered at all. So if you want true in-depth catechesis, if you want in-depth theological education, you don't look to the local church. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You've got to look somewhere else. So you look to, I don't know, podcasts? Just keep that in mind. The average churchgoer, this is based on research, and I'm not saying it's 100% accurate because it's always hard to be able to get these numbers because you have to try to take into account the exception, but at large, the average churchgoer receives less than two hours of structured biblical teaching per week. often spread thin across sermons, devotionals, and small group chats. I want you to hear that again. Two hours of structured biblical teaching per week. That's what the average Christian is getting. Less than two hours of structured biblical teaching per week. Now, look at how much money it costs to keep the church operating. Look at how much people give. What is the average tithe, the average giving by the average church member? Look at how much they give, and they get two hours of structured biblical teaching per week for that much money? I mean, to me, that's a complete and total ripoff, and it shows the church. I think the church, the expenses of the church are rarely ever in any way equal to what people are actually getting for the amount of money it takes to operate. So there's the church. Now, if we step out of the church and we'll go to the podcasting world. Now, churches could be producing podcasts. They could be, right? Many of them don't, and I don't understand why. They've got the equipment, they can record, they can produce a thousand hours of content, but don't even get me started there. But let's talk about Christian podcasts. Most, even within the Christian podcasting world, they kind of follow the same cultural assumption about length and depth and time constraints. The industry norm for Christian podcasts, they typically run somewhere between 10 to 30 minutes. They tend to lean towards devotional, inspiration, or light application. Topics are often simplified, emotional, or anecdotal. A few will embrace in-depth exegesis, or theological debate, or multi-hour explorations, if I can speak correctly. So most are going to go for, they're going to simplify things. They're going to rely on, you know, tried and true Christian cliches. They're going to be somewhat emotional. They're going to offer a lot of anecdotal stories and that kind of thing. There's going to be, there are those though that will offer in-depth exegesis, not eisegesis, exegesis. They're going to offer many—now, theological debate podcasts are popular, right? People love the controversy and, ooh, they're debating. People love that. I don't know if they—what they actually get out of it that's, you know, ooh, we beat that guy. Ooh, we humiliated that guy as if somehow we won a game. I don't—I hate the whole—especially Christian men and theological debates. It's like they're watching sports instead of—it drives me crazy, right? Some Christian podcasts will offer multi-hour explorations or discussions—I don't know which word I should use—but you get the basic idea. The norm is 10 to 30 minutes, though. If you look at some famous ones, the Bible recap, 8-10 minutes per episode. I think She Reads Truth, I think that's the name of it, it's like 20-30 minutes. You've got others, about 20-25 minutes. But that 30-minute mark is pretty much—and Christian radio operated under the same idea, right? I mean, it didn't matter if it was Chuck Swindoll, Charles Stanley, John MacArthur, everything was in 30-minute segments, right? And you had the intro and you had the outro. So the actual teaching was about 20 minutes and 25 minutes. And even some of those, I don't know if those names I mentioned, but certain Christian radio broadcasts, what they started doing is They would have the intro, the teaching would start, and then midway through, they would break into the teaching to offer three to five minute-like info commercial. Hey, this week's offer is this book, or this, or support us now. And then they would go back. So the actual amount of teaching you got in those programs would in some cases be 15 to 20 minutes total. And yet those ministries were bringing in millions of dollars. And I still to this day don't understand. People are giving money to hear MacArthur's edited sermons. And Grace, I've looked at the tax records before, and millions of dollars. I'm like, people are giving millions of dollars so that they can hear edited sermons on radio? I never understood. So many times I don't understand what brings in the money. So if you want to look at the Christian podcasting world, it kind of mirrors this quick spiritual snack model. Rather than meeting what I feel is a rising hunger for deep, time-intensive, honest content, I think we are witnessing kind of a rising hunger for something deeper, for something more meaningful, for something longer. Now, you're still going to get criticized. Now, I want to make it very clear. If you try to produce longer content, you're going to get accused of, just get to the point. I don't need it to be 30 minutes long. I'm not going to listen to all of that. I get those comments. I got a comment on YouTube just in the last, I think, five days about, sir, you just need to get to the point. And it's like, oh, for crying out loud. They just want you to turn on the microphone. It's like, here's the point, the end. Some still want that. But I think there is a rising hunger for deep, time-intensive, honest content. I do believe there is a rising thing. I think there's something going on, and that's what we're going to talk about. prevailing consensus in Christianity is that brevity equals effectiveness. Be brief and then you will be effective. Short sermons—this is the prevailing consensus—are more engaging. Limited teaching is more realistic. I mean, people don't want teaching all the time. And short podcasts are more practical because people are busy. Now, with that consensus being mapped out, with trying to paint the picture of how Christians typically think, I wanna contrast that with something that I think is very fascinating. Because the New York Times, let me see if I can pull this up. The New York Times, just the other day, let me see if I can find the article. I had it saved, I may have closed it. Yeah, let me open it back up. The New York Times, I have it saved somewhere. Here we go. Yeah, the New York Times, I don't know the date here. Is there a date for the story? July the 20th, 2025. The New York Times put out an article entitled, Who is Watching All These Podcasts? Now, part of the focus of this story is that how the audio-only medium of podcasting, which forever was audio-only, has now turned into an industry and a medium that's largely focused on video. So there's the rise of the video. Everyone who has a podcast now needs a video. version of it, right? And you've seen the videos. They're well-produced. They look really nice. People sitting on a couch or at a table or in chairs. There's microphones right there, and they're having these conversations. There can be multi cameras. It'll switch from the right camera to the center, to the left. It's very well-produced. They look really, really nice. And people seem to love those. The weird thing when you get into the actual viewing habits of those who watch these podcasts and have now become video-only, you find out that many, they say they prefer video, but they actually minimize the video and go listen while they're working or doing other things. So I don't know why they say they love video when the reality is they don't sit there and watch the entire thing on the video. I don't understand. I think maybe some people like to at least see the people, even if it's only for two to five minutes, or maybe even 10 or 15, they like to watch and then they move on. And I think it gives a greater sense of connection to the host. And I do understand that. because I think what we're seeing within the culture right now, we have a loneliness epidemic. Look, this has been talked about forever. I've got an article, and I'm gonna try to do an episode about it soon, about how loneliness is killing so many people every year. numbers are somewhat staggering. Where we live in a culture where people feel disconnected, they feel alone, they feel isolated. So I think having a podcast, you listen to that podcast all the time, you begin to develop like some kind of relationship with the person. Even if you never speak to them, you hear their voice hour after hour after hour, they become kind of your companion, become your friend to some level, you feel some connection to them. And that's kind of an awesome thing. So if you can see them as well, that really adds to it, right? Now, for me, I try to go, I'm against a lot of that, right? I don't want, I don't like to, I don't, I mean, I even did it as a pastor. I didn't want my name on the sign. I don't want my name on my podcast. I don't want my picture. I don't want anything because I've tried to constantly tell people, I get emails all the time. Who are you? What is your name? And they'll ask me these questions. I'm like, Who I am is irrelevant. You shouldn't care about who I am. The podcast is not about a person. It's not about trying to create some level of celebrity. It's about the ideas. It's about the discussion. It's about the journey. It's about the struggle. It's about trying to figure things out together. It's about hearing my frustration, my irritation, my anger, or my enjoyment of something, whatever the case may be. I have tried to make it not about that. So this New York Times article talked about the rise of the video format, but then they at least acknowledged that a lot of people are not even actually watching the video. But I think the explanation to that is it's about connection because we're in the middle of a loneliness, pandemic, epidemic, whatever words you want to use. but that's not what really, I wanted to discuss that, but I wasn't as interested in that. I want you to listen to how the article begins. The following are the runtimes of some recent episodes of several of YouTube's most popular podcast. These are the runtimes for some of the most popular podcast on YouTube. This past weekend with Theo Vaughn, episode 595, that episode went two hours and 14 minutes. Club Shea Shea, episode 172, it went two hours and 59 minutes. The Sean Ryan Show, episode 215, it went five hours and four minutes. The Lex Fredman podcast, I think that's how you say his name, episode 461, it went for five hours and 20 minutes. Now, all of these shows follow the same general format, people sitting in chairs and generically designed studios talking. And like many of the biggest podcasts these days, these shows are all released on video. We could have a discussion about that. But I just want you to hear how long those episodes are going. They're now running somewhere between three to five hours long. So do you not see where I'm trying to go with this? The prevailing consensus within the church is it must be short. It must be concise. You must get to the point. You can't go too long. Your sermons should not go over 40 minutes, and 40 minutes is cutting it. It's probably too long. We should only do teaching maybe once or twice a week. And our Christian podcasts have to be short and devotional. This is the prevailing wisdom within Christendom. But something is going on in the culture where people are like, no, no, no, my favorite podcast, the episodes are three to five hours long. And they're tuning into that. Now, just think about this. I want you to remember this. Okay, I'm gonna go back to my statistics here. You've got to hear this, all right? You've got to hear this. The average churchgoer, you've got to hear this, the average churchgoer receives less than two hours of structured biblical teaching per week. So Christians are giving all of this money to run a building where they get two hours of teaching per week, while the culture is getting three to five hour podcast episodes. The podcasts they listen to make up more time than the in-depth teaching they're receiving an entire week from a church that requires $100,000, $1,000,000, $500,000 to operate each year. Try to wrap your mind around that. People are going to YouTube and getting three to five hour long in-depth discussions about everything from politics, to culture, to mental health, to religion, to theology, to philosophy. It's right there on an app, but the church can't give them more than two hours. Oh, come on now. That should bother you some. So in 2025, some of the most popular podcasts on YouTube are running somewhere between three and five hours long. I want you to let that sink in. We're talking about people not just listening to, but actively engaging with hours upon hours upon hours of conversation week after week. Many of these shows release multi-hour episodes week after week after week. And they're not being ignored. They're being consumed and they're being shared. They're being watched. They're being listened to by hundreds of thousands of people, if not millions. Millions are not flocking to the... Well, we'll contrast it this way. You maybe have millions who go to the pew to listen to a little... sermonette from a pastor standing behind a pulpit inside a building that takes $500,000 to $1,000,000 to keep operating every year, and they show up there to get maybe two hours of teaching in an entire week, while millions of others, instead of running to the pew, are just, well, they're just sitting down, opening up their mobile device, opening up YouTube, and then listening to discussions that go three to five hours long. And even if some of those Christians sitting in the pew open up YouTube to get to these discussions, guess what? Who's doing more feeding? Is the flock being fed by the pastor in these buildings that cost money, or is the flock being fed by YouTube video creators and content creators who are giving them three to five hours of in-depth conversation? YouTube just recently announced that over 1 billion people per month are watching podcasts on its platform. Try to wrap your mind around that. Over 1 billion people per month are watching podcasts on YouTube. That's just YouTube alone. We're not talking all the different podcasting apps. According to an April 2025 survey by Cumulus Media and Signal Hill Insights, nearly three quarters of podcast consumers now play podcast videos, even if they minimize them while doing other things. Sorry. So that just shows you that everybody says they want video, but they minimize the video. So it's crazy. So I guess here's the real question I want to get to. If people are willing to give three to five hours of their time to podcast host every day or at least every week, what should the church learn about it? I'm gonna try to phrase that again, all right? If people out there are willing to give three to five hours of their time to podcast host every day or at least every week, what should the church learn from that? Why should the church be learning from that? I can immediately start screaming a number of things, but let's try to dig deep and look into this, all right? So, let's try to talk about first the long podcast phenomenon. I think it's a new phenomenon, and I think it needs to be said. Now, it's been going on for a while. I mean, you could talk Joe Rogan is the king of the long podcast phenomenon, all right? His podcast can go three, four, five hours, and people, millions of people watch that. So let's try to examine the landscape a little bit, okay? I've given you some of the run times, two hours and 14 minutes, two hours and 59 minutes, five hours and four minutes, five hours and 20 minutes. Those are just four recent episodes from different podcasts. Now, here's what I want you to know. There's no flashy editing in these podcasts. There's no storytelling gimmicks. It's just people sitting in chairs talking. But these episodes are racking up views, hundreds of thousands, sometimes in the millions. The average podcast episode globally, the average is over 43 minutes long. I want you to hear that. The average one is over 43 minutes. That means the average podcast episode is longer than the average sermon. Go figure that. So, in reality, I could get in my car, listen to a podcast episode on the way to church, and get more in-depth discussion and content than I'm going to get when I finally get to church and sit down and listen to something delivered from a pulpit inside a building that costs all kinds of money to keep operating. Just try to wrap your mind around that. Podcast episodes are longer than sermons. That's just crazy. Now, some podcasts around maybe 18 to 20 percent, there's some dispute over the number. They go over with a one hour mark. They go over the one hour mark. I listen to Knowledge Fight. Knowledge Fight is a podcast where the two guys dedicate themselves to reviewing and analyzing recent episodes of the Alex Jones podcast. I like it because it's very anti-conspiracy theorist and they tear up conspiracy theories apart, even though they're They can be very explicit in their language and their opinions clearly are not Christian. I do love the fact that they make, they show you the foolishness of conspiracy theories. Those episodes go, I don't think I've ever seen one of their, maybe there's been a few less than an hour, but they usually run close to two hours. Usually close to two hours. Now, sometimes they go a long time without producing any content. I get a little frustrated, but on a normal week, I think it's about two episodes per week. So that's about four hours of content from just that podcast. That would be double the amount of content that you're going to get from going to church. I mean, just try to wrap your mind around that. And this is very important, the most watched though, this is what you need to see. We can look at all the numbers of a podcasting world at large, but I want you to really think about the most watched, the most talk about podcast today. They shatter the assumption that they have to be short. because the most watched, the most talked about podcasts right now, they're not short, they're long, they're unfiltered, they are slow conversations. And those episodes and those shows are thriving. Now, I'm not saying that this is gonna be a sustainable trend. I'm saying it's something that the church needs to pay attention to. So I guess we could ask this question. Why are people listening then for hours? Why are people tuning in for hour after hour after hour after hour? Why? There's got to be a reason people are drawn to this. Why are people giving five hours to a podcast, but only 20 to 35 minutes to a sermon? I'm gonna just make some, this is just some speculation here. I cannot be dogmatic. I think number one, people want depth. They don't want sound bites. I do think people, now there's still the TikTok culture. Don't get me wrong. The TikTok culture is still thriving. But let's make this very clear because I get so frustrated by this. It's usually the older generation. These young kids today, they just make stupid stereotypes and assumptions. People said it about my generation. Oh, you watch that MTV. Nobody watched MTV more than I did. I would go 48 hours without sleep. I would sometimes push it to 72 hours without any sleep just watching one video after another video after another video after another video. I would make lists. I would sit there and write down the name of every band and the name of every song. I mean, oh, but it was supposed to destroy me. But you know what else I was doing when I wasn't watching MTV? I was reading novel after novel after novel after novel after novel after novel. I read books constantly. So people always say that. Now, there's always those within every generation who don't care about things being in-depth. They like it simple. They like it simplistic. They like it short. They don't want analysis. They just want simple answers. That is true of older people. That's true of younger people because every person is different. There can be trends within society. So there will always be those who want a five-minute TikTok video over a five-hour conversation. There will always be that. But I think that there is those within society and maybe a growing number who they want depth. They don't want the soundbite. I think if you look at the digital world, it's typically driven by brevity, right? We can call, do we still call them tweets or do we call them Xs? I don't, they're tweets. of reels, shorts. There's a growing hunger, I think, for something slower, something deeper. I think people crave authenticity, not production polish. Now that, look, that's been my, that's been my philosophy on this podcast, right? I don't go, I just record it live. There's no safety net, there's no edit. If I swallow weird, If I mispronounce something, it's all right there for the world. Every failure, every mistake, if subject verb agreement is off, it's there for the world to see. And sometimes you guys will email me and tell me I said this wrong or you will correct me on something. But you know what? It's authentic. I could cut things out, I could produce it, I could delete episodes where I may make them. No, I could make it sound and look more professional. But I think people are looking for something more authentic, not production. And some of the Christian podcasts, they're so overproduced and they follow the same template. They drive me nuts. It's like, can you just turn on the microphone and be authentic? I think there's a growing number of people who want substance. They're sick of soundbites. I think there's a growing number of people who want presence, not performance. They just like that person being right there talking to them and being real and talking about their life, their difficulties and their struggles versus putting on a performance. And I think that's what long podcasts are offering. They're offering a space where you're invited in and we're like, we're not in a hurry. We're not in a rush. We're gonna take our time. I think some of these long form podcasts where you can explore ideas. Maybe it's the place where you can feel human again. And this is really, it's nothing new. It's nothing new. Do you guys remember what the number one overnight radio talk show was for, I don't know, forever? It still may be number one. It was coast to coast AM. Do you know how long some of those episodes went? Four hours, five hours. Art Bell was my companion night after night after night. It would start around midnight, go to three, four, five in the morning. Art Bell right there in my ear, it was presence. It wasn't performance. Talking about some of the most crazy, outlandish things that I laughed at and thought these things are crazy, but it was sometimes it didn't matter what he was talking about. It was just the presence. And I think that this offers you a chance to feel human. It's I'm a person listening to this and it feels something, something there. So I think people want depth, not soundbites. I think a second thing I think there's a sense where podcasting feels like companionship to some level. This is a quote from a listener. It feels a little more personal, like somebody is there with you, just a little bit of company. And we are facing a loneliness epidemic, as I have said. There's too many studies that show that and people can turn on and it feels personal. It feels like somebody is right there. It's like, I can finally have a little bit of company. I'm isolated and alone, but I hit play and there's a voice. There's a voice there. And it's not a performance, it's discussion. I got an email just not too long ago with someone talking about all the podcasts they listen to. Guess what they said? They don't listen to sermons. Now, this was someone who listens to in-depth theological podcasts, but they don't listen to sermons. Try to wrap your mind around that. They listen to in-depth theological podcasts. They don't listen to sermons. The church has to wake up and try to figure out why. Because I think in many cases sermons sound performative. They sound like a performance. It's like they manufactured. It doesn't sound real. And they're in a hurry. Gotta get the people out to the buffet by noon. I think for many, these long-form podcasts are filling kind of a relational vacuum. These podcasts, these podcasters are voices in the room while they're doing their dishes, or folding the laundry, or going for a walk. It may be passive, but it feels profoundly human. I think another thing going on right now, and I'm just offering my own, these are my opinions. I'm speculating here. I'm not being dogmatic about why these long-form podcasts are rising in popularity. I'm offering some thoughts. I think podcast just allows people to listen while they're just doing whatever. It's like having, you know, they're just involved in these in-depth conversations while they're going about their day and driving, running errands, doing chores. And I think it just gives them this for something meaningful while they're doing these things. I think another thing happening is I think many cases, people are trusting podcasting host or content creators, depending on the term you want to use, over institutions. I think many people see podcasters as being more real, being more raw, being more trustworthy than corporate media or the church. I know this. I can turn on this microphone and be more real and say more things than I could in a corporate church, a mainstream church. I would get fired. They would get offended. They would get mad. We can have conversations here you can't have from the pulpit because people would get mad and they'd get their feelings and you get the phone call. Why did you do this? Why did you do this? Why did you do this? And look, I had a beautiful experience in my life as a pastor. I had some things that were very painful and hurtful, but for the most part, my experience as a pastor, when I've heard other pastors tell their stories, I don't even know how they survived. They went through some crazy stuff. But you just, you can't, it's just never-ending criticism and complaint, and everybody wants what they want. But here, I can turn on this microphone and talk about whatever, and if you get offended, who cares? and the church structure as a pastor, you're trying to maintain the institution. In many cases, your entire livelihood is attached to it. Now, yeah, it would be great if I could make money podcasting, but you know what? Then the more money you try to make, the more you've got to try to please everybody as well, and you fall back into the same trap. But in some cases, you're more free here, or at least I feel more free here. I think it may be disturbing, but I think it's revealing, right? That many people trust podcasters more than they trust the church. And I think this brings us directly to how the church has to respond. What can the church, what does the church need to learn from this rising popularity of the three to five hour long podcast? I'm gonna try to walk through this carefully, all right? If people are giving hours of their lives to a long form podcast, What does this tell you? What does it tell me? What does it tell us? And what should it call us to do as Christians and as the church? So I'm going to try to break this down to diagnosis, theological implication, the opportunity, and the warning. I'm going to try to break it down into four parts. Let's look at the diagnosis. What does this reveal about people? I think it reveals that people are not necessarily bored by long content. They're bored by shallow content. They're searching for depth. They're searching for honesty. They're searching for belonging. They're searching for meaning. And they're getting that from podcasters. They're not getting it from the church. The church is about everyone dressing up and playing playtime. It's like playing house. It's like everyone's getting, oh, how you doing, brother? How you doing, sister? Oh, everything's wonderful. It is just all performance. It's just garbage. Nobody can be real. And then the sermon is all manufactured and structured just to fit that nice little format so that nobody gets truly offended and everybody goes home happy. And then they'll keep giving their money so you can keep running the institution. I think people are looking for something deeper. I think there's truth to what I'm saying here. You may disagree with my diagnosis, but I think it's the case. And look, I got sick and tired of being told All the years is about your people. Your people can't handle that. I would be like, shut up. You can't tell me what my people can handle. We're going in depth. I remember when I first became a youth pastor, when I first became a youth pastor at a church in Nebraska, right? I was handed the, here's the teenagers, it's your class. I'm like, great. So I walked in the first week. I told the teenagers, all right, you need a notebook. You need a pencil. You need a Bible. We begin a verse by verse study of the book of Leviticus. And everybody's like, you can't do that with teenagers. I'm like, why can't I? Are you saying they're too stupid to understand a verse-by-verse exposition of Leviticus, and to struggle with all of the host sacrificial system, and what's going on with mold, and what happens when there's a bleeding issue, and all the different things going on? Oh, but you know what? They actually appreciated that I didn't treat them with like, all right, kids, we're going to talk about don't listen to rock and roll and don't watch a rated R movie and don't have sex with your boyfriend, just moralism and rules and treat you like you're an idiot. I taught them hermeneutics. I taught them Bible study methods, taught them theology proper. Now, did my way work? I'm not saying, I'm not talking about whether it works or doesn't work. I'm saying that's what I think the church should be doing. And I, and it just demonstrates teenagers can handle it. And my people in a little, in no, you know, rundown building in the middle of nowhere, Texas for 20, you know, 15 years, it was very successful in giving the people the most in-depth teaching possible. Now over time, ultimately my model failed. I think my model will always run into, the majority will always reject what I'm calling for. But I think the rise of the long-form podcast is showing there's still a hunger out there for people. They're searching for something in-depth, they're searching for honesty, they're searching for belonging, they're searching for meaning, and they're getting it from podcasts, and I don't think in many cases they're getting it from the church. Maybe we could state it this way. What used to be a function of spiritual community is now being provided by YouTube algorithms. Ooh, do I drop the mic? Do I drop the mic? What used to be a function of spiritual community is now being provided by YouTube algorithms. So I think there's kind of the diagnosis. What about the theological implications? What should the church learn? People are hungry for meaning. long podcasts about artificial intelligence, war, trauma, addiction, purpose. These are spiritual explorations, even if they don't claim to be. Even if it's a secular podcast, they're still spiritual explorations. People are trying to make sense of their world. That used to be the church's calling to help people make sense of the world, but now the cultural pulpit has shifted It's no longer inside the church on the corner. It's right there in your podcasting app. It's right there on YouTube. That's where the cultural shift is. That's where people are going to... They're hungry to find meaning. They're not looking to the church. The pulpit has changed, and the church, I don't think, has woken up yet, in some cases. I think people want presence, not performance. Podcast listeners don't want a worship team and a fog machine. They want to feel like someone's in the room with them. Now, some people want the worship team. They want the fog machine. They do. And so there will always be people there. But I think a lot of people are like, no, I don't want that anymore. I want to feel like there's someone in the room with me who talks to me and listens to me. I think honest conversation ultimately trumps... I think it's better than carefully choreographed programming or a carefully choreographed sermon. or a carefully choreographed worship service. Hey, we got to get the worship team up here. And then we go to this video, and then we show this on the screen, and then we do PowerPoint, and ah, ha, ha, ha, ha. Okay, now we get everyone out of here. Now make sure you leave the money at the door because it takes a lot of money to keep this big thing going. I don't think time is the issue. I think substance is. Churches will trim their sermons almost out of fear, almost like, I have to. But if the average listener to podcasts is willing to give, what's his name, Lex Fredman five hours plus, come on, something's going on. I don't think the problem is that sermons are too long. I think the problem is that they may not feel worth sticking with. Maybe it's not the length of the sermon, it's the, what's there? What are you giving me? So, does this present then an opportunity for the church? I think churches need to stop fearing long form. If you have something worth saying, then why shorten it? If, and I'm reaching down, if right here is truly The infallible, inerrant word of the eternal God. It's sharper than any two-edged sword. It's living, it's active. It divides us under. It opens us up. It confronts us. It shows us our motivations, shows us our hypocrisy. It condemns us and points us to our only hope, which is Christ. If the Word of God does all of that, then it's worth talking about, and it's worth talking about more than trying to get done in 35 minutes and a nice little outline where all the letters rhyme or some nonsense like that. The typical sermon structure is stupid, and it treats people like they're idiots. And most of the time, the sermon is a waste of stinking time! It's just the same tried cliches and the same... It's like there's no even thinking involved. It's like, oh, wait, you went to MacArthur's commentary, page 52, and you're giving me what I could have got for the MacArthur commentary! It's the same stinking outline! deep teaching, theology, questions and answers, long conversations. I think there's a real hunger out there for these. I think there's a real hunger for these. Maybe Sunday morning has to stay short because your business model requires pleasing the Sunday morning crowd because that's where most of the people are and maybe most of your money comes from the Sunday morning crowd because they'll throw in $5 in the plate, $10 in the plate. If you have 300 people there all throwing in $5 or $10 in the plate, you're going to be able to make your budget hopefully. So if you gotta keep Sunday morning short because you gotta keep the people happy and you gotta keep them giving money, you do have a building. That building is available to you seven days a week, 24 hours a day, right? 24-7, 7-24, however you want to do it. And you can use that building for what? You can offer classes around the clock. I don't know. You could take one of the rooms in that building that you spend all that money for. I don't know what you could do. You could install a microphone. You could probably buy a laptop or a MacBook or a Google Chrome or whatever you want to buy, and you could say, okay, what platform could we broadcast on? Maybe sermon audio. And you can like, we go live. And then you just have long conversations about whatever. You could bring in your staff and have long conversations about their spiritual struggle. Oh, wait, I know you got to be careful. because you know you can't talk about your struggles in a real way because you'll get fired from your job because the stinking church doesn't want anyone to be real they just want everyone to be fake okay but okay don't get me started but the point is you can have long conversations and you can broadcast whenever something is going on you can talk about it Churches have the infrastructure. They have the finances. Just turn on the microphone and talk about anything, everything. Be real. It doesn't have to be polished and perfect. Maybe in the midweek you do a deep dive for two hours plus. Maybe during the midweek, even if you're doing it live at church or if you're just doing it online in a podcast, you can do slow, long scripture walkthroughs where you deal with all the problems and difficulties. So the church got to stop fearing the long form. And you know what? Forget what the cultural expectation is. Forget that people assume that people's short attention spans are shot. Just stop that. Clearly, we've got evidence there's something is going on in culture. How about the church enters into the stream, not just the pulpit? People aren't just in pews anymore. They're in earbuds. They're on kitchen speakers sitting on the counter. They're on car dashboards. create theological audio content that meets people where they are. They may not be in the pew, but you can reach them. And it's more than just reaching them by, well, we put our sermons online. Well, congratulations. You spend $60 a month to be on Sermon Audio and you upload what? A sermon a week? That's a waste of stinking money. Create content that meets people where they live—quietly, casually, and consistently. Think, uh, I don't know what we call—theology! Theology for where you are, right? It's a TED talk, but it's a theological talk instead of a TED talk. Leverage the medium. You don't have to imitate necessarily the method. You don't have to become a talk show. You don't have to do that. But what if your small group, your discipleship classes, and your podcast embrace kind of an honest, slow, vulnerable format that draws people to a long form discussion? And I think then we can end with a warning. The church is being replaced quietly, whether you like it or not. People trust podcasters more than they do pastors. They're spending more time with secular hosts than they are spending time in the Bible. Their theological and moral frameworks are being shaped by three-hour interviews with comedians and billionaires, not by the gospel. And if the church doesn't reclaim depth, honesty, and time, someone else already has. So we cannot miss what this all means. People are telling us right now, I will give hours of my time. I will listen closely. I will engage deeply. I just need it to matter. They don't necessarily need entertainment. They don't necessarily need lights and they don't need perfect stagecraft. They need something true. They need something weighty. They need something that meets them where they are and walks with them as they try to understand the world in which they live. So maybe this is a challenge to the church. Are you going to be brave enough to stop trimming the message just to fit a stinking format or to try to keep people happy? Can you trust that the Bible and the gospel can actually hold the attention for longer than a coffee break? Will we give the people something better or will the world actually give something, continue to give our people something better? I think the real threat is missing the opportunity. The rise of the three to four hour long podcast. Am I saying every podcaster should do three to four hours? Absolutely not. They should not. Do we need some that are 10 to 15 minutes? Absolutely we do. Do we need some that are 30 minutes? Absolutely. Do we need some that are 45 minutes? Absolutely. Because each podcaster needs to be true to themselves, right? Not everyone can sit here for an hour and talk, two hours and talk. Not everybody can. Right? Every podcaster needs to be true to themselves. And we want variety of content because sometimes people don't have time or want to listen to a three to four hour podcast. So there needs to be variation. There needs to be variety. There needs to be that. But it also needs to show us there's something going on here. people are tuning into a five-hour-long podcast and it has hundreds of thousands of millions of views, that's got to say, whoa, wait a minute, something's going on. And so my job is to say, I think there's a trend here, and we've got to pay attention to it. I don't know if all of my thoughts about the trend are accurate. I told you I was speculating. I was offering my theory. But I do know this. I'm sick and tired of the church always making excuses why we can't do this and why we can't do that and why we can't do that but yet they still want the money to pay the bill to keep the building going. And I've said it so many times, the amount of money that keeps a church operating for simply 12 months would keep a Christian in-depth podcast that's broadcasting for hour upon hour upon hour upon hour, maybe each day or each week, it would fund them for forever. They would never need any more money. Usually what it takes to keep a church operating for simply one year would keep a podcast operating for 30 years. And the podcast gives more than what the church is giving when it comes to actual content and teaching. That disparity drives me insane. I don't get it. And what drives me crazy is you drive by these churches and you see these big buildings. I mean, I can't even imagine how much it costs to keep that thing operating each month. And then you'll see not a car in the parking lot, or if there's a car in the parking lot, you'll look up and go, what do they offer during the week? What? What do they do? What? They may let a million other groups use their building, or they charge those people to rent out space in their building so they can bring in more money, like churches charge people to rent out their buildings for weddings, because we're so pro-marriage, but we're gonna charge people to use our buildings so they can get married. Go figure that. But what I always felt like, they could be in there right now, they could have an entire podcast studio. They could be broadcasting all day. They got an entire staff. They got multiple teaching pastors. Each pastor could have their own podcast series right now. They could produce five podcasts a day. They could have their own podcasting network. but I know what they have to do. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. We got to focus on the people here. We got to make sure we're doing all the things here because if we don't get the people here, because let's be fair, you may have a podcasting audience of 100,000 and bring in $15. I mean, I know that. I mean, I know that. We are ranked in the top 5% of all podcasts in the world. We're lucky in a month to bring in 70 to $80. And that's not an exaggeration. One of those is one person gives, what, $50, I think? I think they give $50. So the one is one person giving $50. And I don't remember the other numbers, but I think we're around about $80 maybe a month, maybe. Sometimes we get up to $100. Now, every once in a while, we'll get a large gift, but I'm saying most of the time. So I think that's the thing. The church has to go, hmm, we get a lot more money when we have people here on a Sunday morning. So yeah, we could be producing hours and hours of content, and I think that raises another question. A lot of people love to have access. They love to take their phone, hit play, and they don't care or even think about the time, effort, and money it costs to give them that content. And they won't even think about giving a dime. So I think for many churches, they realize the cost is not worth it. And in some ways I can't blame them. They're trying to maintain a budget. So why pay all this extra money for broadcasting and spend all those hours of work when you may not – you may get up to 200,000 listeners, but how much money does that actually mean that you're going to bring in? That's why many podcasters move to hiding stuff behind a paywall. because unless you can get it behind a paywall, most cases people are not going to support you in giving. That's just a reality. So maybe that's a reason why many churches don't bother producing. Because if you produce a three to five hour podcast, you know how much time all of that takes? Setting everything up, figuring out what you're going to say, broadcasting three to five hours, then uploading it, making sure everything looks right. I mean, you're wiping out an entire day. Right now, I've gone 67 minutes. So for the time to get everything ready to do all of this, you can just put an hour there. So that's now I'm already at two plus hours. Then when I'm done, I got to upload this manually to the podcasting platforms. Then I got to download it from there. And then I got to re-upload it to Sermon Audio. I got to then do all of the metadata. So I'm probably looking at another 30 minutes maybe to get it all done. So when it's all said and done, it's going to be close to three hours of my time to just produce this one episode. And you know how much I'll make per hour? I'll make none, because the money just goes back to basically keeping us on the air. So that's the other difficult part. Now, some of the podcasters reach a certain level where they get sponsors, and they monetize, and they start bringing in some serious money. But from a Christian perspective, the church may look at that going, I hear what you're saying, but I don't know if it's worth all of that effort and all of that time. And it makes sense. It makes sense. But we have a cultural shift. We have a cultural shift. The people who go to your church, many of them are consuming hours upon hours upon hours of long form podcast. Meaning they're actually being fed by the podcaster, not the pulpit. All right. Hopefully you found the conversation interesting. And if you did, good. And if you listen to all 68 minutes of this, you've proven that you listen to a long-form podcast. I mean, I didn't go two, three, five hours. I mean, I'd have to develop a whole new frame of, a whole new format to be able to produce that. I could do it, I could do it. I got no problem turning on the microphone at, you know, 7 p.m. and going to 10 p.m. I got no problem turning on the microphone at 10 o'clock at night and going till five in the morning. But, you know, that requires a whole different way of formatting each episode. And, you know, that's a full-time job. So, all right, thanks for listening. That's what's going on in the world of podcasting and how maybe the church should think about it. God bless.