Exploring the Anazao Podcast Network: 2025 Reflections and 2026 Aspirations - The Whole Church Podcast

Saint Paul writes in Ephesians 4, verses 25, 26, and then continuing

Ephesians 4:25

in 31:32 in the New American Standard Bible, therefore, ridding

yourselves of falsehood, speak truth, each one of you with his neighbor,

because we are parts of one another. Be angry and yet do not

sin. Do not let the sun go down on your anger. All bitterness,

wrath, anger, clamor and slander must be removed from you

along with all malice. Be kind to one another, compassionate, forgiving

each other, just as God in Christ has also forgiven you in this

pericope of Scripture. St. Paul is writing to the church in

Ephesus about what it means to be the church. Here he's telling

the church how to behave towards one another. After this section,

he's going to go on to discuss how families in the church should

treat one another, parents to children, husbands and wives, that

kind of stuff. Brandon Knight how can we today better and practically

learn to speak truth, have a healthy relationship with anger,

and still forgive one another in the ways that St. Paul is describing

here?

I mean, being angry and sinning, not, as some translations

put it, is like the million dollar question. I feel like it's

like something that Christians still to this day have a difficult

time trying to do. I would say just kind of my own take on this

and would be, I think we would we can show kindness and we can have

less outbursts of sinful anger if we actually slow down to understand

one another, that we may have seek opportunities to sit with one

another and to actually discuss rather than relying upon

stereotypes or misinformation that we might know about other Christians

and instead actually like embrace community and rather than

just trying to wave our flags of, you know, this is my stance,

this is. And I'm angry because other people disagree.

Yeah, good work. Also interesting that he says be angry

and do not sin and then immediately turned around with a

also get rid of all anger. Hey guys, welcome to the whole Church

podcast podcast. Possibly your favorite church unity podcast on

possibly your favorite random Christian podcast network of some

friends that like to hang out with each other on occasion and complain

about Josh mostly. I'm Josh.

Amen.

I'm Josh, one of the co hosts of this show. Missing the co host

with the absolute most TJ Tiberious Juan Blackwell, also known

as Pod Almighty. I think his New Year's resolution was to make

me suffer slightly more. So I'm recovering from a flu or something

and he's setting this one out. But I'm here with two wonderful gentlemen

who are going to help me struggle through this episode because

they're also podcast experts. Yeah, yeah. The one and only Brandon

Knight you heard discussing the verse a little bit earlier. He

is the host of my Seminary life, as well as Kung Fu Pizza Party,

as well as the father to the one and only producer Cooper. Yeah,

I think that's an important bit to include.

It is. Yeah.

Yeah. So, Pastor Sensei, Brandon, good to have you. And we

are also here with someone who's master, another person who's

mastered the divine itself, the one and only Christian Ashley.

He's also learned from Will the powers of the magic head. Yeah.

Welcome, Christian. Oh, Christian's also the host of 1700

podcasts, let nothing Move you. He's one of the hosts of Systematic

Ecology. Brandon used to a host of Systematic Ecology. I am

a host of Systematic Ecology. TJ is a host of Systematic Ecology.

Will is a host. We're not going to do this, but Christian also

host why I don't like Friday night frights. Some other things.

I think I can't keep up with everything Christian does. And that's

considering one more. Yeah, yeah. Just for fun, for those who

don't know, I occasionally do one that's be living water that for

a long time was dummy for theology. I also help with the Bible

after hours and both of those have been not publishing really well.

So we'll be discussing all of our podcasts, plural. We'll be discussing

what the network is. Some other shows that are going to be

added to the network are being added, might be added, you know,

that kind of stuff.

And we're just gonna have she it they added. It's first grade.

Spongebob.

I'm just glad we both got to Wombo at the same time. That's what

church unity is all about. So with that said, guys, consider going

to our website, purchasing one of our T shirts. It helps promote

our show, it helps raise some money for podcasting needs, and it

lets other people know about the importance of our mission to

educate and unite the modern church. The one I'm wearing currently

is one I like to suggest it's I like the green shade, but there's

several different colors. The whole church podcast on the back

has the Irish Trinity nod, has a nice nod to the Nicene Creed, and

it says one church, one God. So, you know, I recommend that one

for you guys. Check it out. And I'm back.

By the way, sorry to interrupt you because I forgot which day we

were recording. I thought we were recording yesterday. So that's

when I wore my Systematic Ecology shirt. Only to realize, oh,

I'm in the wrong.

I'm a complete dork. I have my kung fu pizza party shirt sitting

out and I forgot to.

Throw it on, so I need one of those, actually.

Anyway, Will Rose has one.

What? Will's cooler than me? Pick one up, man. Also, since we're

all on the network, remember to go to Bonaza Podcast Network.

The link is in the show's description. It always is. Actually,

I always put that link down there. So if you want to hear some

of these shows we're talking about, or some of the other ones

like this, or whichever one I forget to mention, like when I forget

to mention the homily because I've been forgetting to update it

so long, you could still find it there using that link, even though

I forgot to say it. So, without further ado, we're going

to jump into the most important form of unity, which, of

course is silliness. Yeah, there's nothing that really gets

you more bonded than just goofing off. Talking about Wombo

was just too serious for this show. So instead we're going to discuss

if you could retroactively give yourself a New year's resolution

for 2025 to do something that you already achieved. That way you

could just kind of feel good about yourself for. For succeeding

in that resolution. What would be your retroactive 2025 New Year's

resolution?

Brandon, you know, whenever you send out the. The script for

these episodes, I always check two things. The first one is, am

I going to be asked the Bible verse? Because I've been caught off

guard before by that. And what is this? I almost disregard the rest

of the notes. I have to know, what's the Bible verse? Do I have

to talk or. And what is the silly question? And mine would be

finish in fourth place at Ninja Games at Ninja Con in November.

Man, I'm just so proud of you for setting such a specific goal.

I know.

And then you did the thing, man.

And I did the thing.

And knowing you're lame.

Yeah, yeah, I love it. I think for myself, I'm gonna let Christian

go last. Save the best for last. I would set my own goal to

beat three video games that aren't Kingdom Hearts this year.

And, you know, I'm proud of myself for that.

What three?

Oh, I. I've beat Oblivion because I never played Oblivion before

this year, so I got through that. Well, I guess I'm counting

all of the Jack of Daxter series as one game for some reason.

That's fine. So I beat Oblivion. I beat that and then there

was some random indie game I found that I beat. But I also beat

the main campaign for Planet Zoo, so I'll count that. That'll

be my third one. Planet Zoo is awesome, by the way. Christian, what

is your retroactive 2025 New Year's resolution?

Yeah, mine would be to publish another episode of why I don't like

because I hadn't done so in over a year and I did it right before

the end year ended, baby.

Yeah, I listened just because I was like, is this a new season

or is this the same thing? I love it. Maybe It'll be my 2026 resolution.

I'll do one more episode of both Be Living Water and Bible After

Hours by the end of the year. I'm not guaranteeing anything but

the end of the year.

Love it.

Yeah. Yeah. Good stuff. Well, I'm proud of all three of us. We

did great at those New Year's resolutions that we totally came

up with in time. So let's start with our with our intros. Amazingly,

there's probably around for some reason. December, January, we

get a lot of new listeners around this time. So there probably

are some people that this is their first episode. Congratulations

to you guys. I'm sure this has been confusing so far, so let's start

with some intros for those people who haven't listened to the

whole church much before. Or maybe this is their very first episode.

Just kind of let everybody know. Who are you? I'm going to let

Christian go first. Who you are, how you came to Jesus, how you

got involved with us of all people, and what shows you are running

on the Onaz Isle Podcast Network.

So we're going to use the Marvel method. You know, every episode,

someone's first episode. So welcome everyone. If this is somehow

your first episode and Joshua was right for once in his life. We

all love each other, we're all friends. So if we say anything like

that, we actually do enjoy each other's company. So. I'm Christian

Ashley. I grew up in the Southern Baptist Church. My mother

had me on a Tuesday, I was in on church on Sunday. And I have lived

in the church ever since. I came to Faith when I was six years

old, after one particular sermon, my dad took me aside, asked

me about what the pastor was saying, what I thought about Jesus,

what I thought about sin and my relationship towards Jesus. And

I realized that we didn't have one. As much as a six year old child

understands what they're getting into. I accepted him into

my heart. I got baptized the year after that. I have been in the

church ever since. Even in my times of being the guy who thinks

you can be lone wolf Christian, I would still read scripture,

I would still get stuff done. Eventually realized that I was in

the wrong to do that, got back into the church. I've worked in many

places in there and youth and children's ministry, small group

leaders, so on and so forth. And how I got involved with Joshua

is I met him in college and. And we kind of hit it off pretty

well. And then he left me behind, you know, like a callous

man that he is. But, you know, he had to do his own things. He had

some growing to do, as it were, and so did I. And eventually

along the way, you know, I had read forever ago that he was making

this whole church podcast thing. Even though we had gotten

out of touch, I had never listened to it then about. Unfortunately,

we have to date things this way pre Covid I had. Or maybe it

was in the midst of COVID Either one, sorry, time is bad when

you're getting old. Like me, early onset Alzheimer's hits pretty

hard at 35. And I had reached out to him and said, hey, like, I'm

really enjoying what you're doing. Unity is something that's

very big in my heart. And yeah, I don't always agree with everything

that you reach conclusions on, but it's nice to hear your voice

again and it's nice, you know, you're doing something like this.

I appreciate the effort. It's like, oh, Christian, do you want

to be on the show? Like you're an author now. It's like, sure. And

next thing I know, like, two months later, I'm being interviewed

like I'm someone important. And it just kind of spiraled from

there.

Yeah.

The shows I run on NSL Podcast Network, I do let nothing move you.

That's my Bible podcast. I go chapter by chapter, verse by verse.

I've done all the Pentateuch, I've done Luke, Romans, and I'm about

to finish up Matthew. I'll be going back into the historical books

after this. I also do Friday Night Frights with Joe Day, who co

host with me there. That's where we discuss all the creepy and

fantastical stuff of the world. You know, you're like, Ness

Monster, Mothman, Did King Arthur actually exists, Roanoke,

so on, so forth. Then I do why I don't like, which is a show where

I discuss media that I'm not too fond of. And, you know, I explain,

you know, why I think it's not good. Like, how I think things might

be better, but also, like, not be a way to, like, just completely

trashing and say, if you like it, I don't like you. Like, I want

to air my feelings out without, like, destroying someone

else. And then finally, I'm on some indie show. Systematic ecology

is like 50 billion hosts now. And I show up, like, practically

every other episode, it feels like, because, hey. Oh, someone wasn't

able to make it. Oh, Christian doesn't have a life. We'll put him

on.

I didn't know you actually saw those texts when I put them out.

Oh, no. I usually, I think people just, like, jump in a group

chat or, like, who's available? And what Christian's not

telling you is he's like, I would love to be on that episode.

And he just says that to every episode. No, it's good stuff. It's

good stuff. I'll show you a little bit about myself later. I

want to go ahead and hear from Brandon because, man, when you're

sporting a beer that nice, you got to get more camera time. You

know.

I did not know that part of the lore, Christian, about how you

and Josh were connected. Glad I got to be here to hear that. And

it's also nice to know, Christian, that you took my job at

Systematic Ecology of the one who's just thrown into the episode.

That's our lot in life.

Yeah, he just doesn't have as cool a beard when he does it, but

he has a magic head now, so I think it balances out.

Yep, magic. Hi, my name is. What? Okay, so I'm Brandon Knight.

I am the host of my seminary life and Kung Fu Pizza party. I came

to know pretty similar backstory as Christian when it comes

to south to the salvific aspect of things. Came to know Christ

as savior when I was a little boy. Grew up in church believing

home was homeschooled. Went to a Christian high school. Yes, I was

very sheltered at one point in my life. I cannot beat the white.

Even angelical charges. When you start playing Reliant K and John

Rubin and other great CCM from the early 2000s, I would say my faith

kind of pivoted from having the correct answer and doing the

correct things as. As my faith in God to a more relationally focused.

Relationally focused relationship. Boy, you. That's a

great way to get people interested in listening to my show.

More relationally driven aspect with my faith with Jesus when

I was in college also started exploring other Christian traditions.

Had pretty much grown up Baptist. Spent a lot of time like

in the reformed kind of camp there right around college as well.

Thankfully converted. So that's me. My faith background a

little bit kind of like more. More relationally with my faith in

God. Now I have two shows. I started my seminary life just before

I met Josh. Josh posted in a Christian podcaster group. We used

to both be a part of that. He was casting hosts for a deep theology

show and I was like, yeah, that sounds like something I would

do. So sent over an episode where I talked about C.S. lewis and

Tolkien. Little did I know that was the correct answer to persuade.

Get you to like him. So if you go back into the early episodes of

Systematic Ecology, you'll hear me talking with Joe Day about

wrestling and Sonic the Hedgehog. Josh and I talking about

Bob's Burgers and how I met your mother, Will and TJ and I reviewing

the original. The first. Not the original, but the. The first

Dune movie of the trilogy. And then I think even one of the early

episodes from when I returned to start doing cameo appearances.

I think one of the first ones I did was with Christian. I don't

know if you remember this. Talking about the. The fan fiction

fan theory, that being said, is a dart. Oh, yeah, yeah. I completely

forgot about that until I was thinking about doing this episode

and what I wanted to say. So, yeah, my seminary life started when

I went back to seminary to finish my master's degree. I have

not. I'm going to correct the correct, Josh. I have not mastered

divinity. I have mastered art. I have a master of arts in church

ministry. That's fine. I just don't want to take. Take that, you

know, stolen valor there. I have not mastered the divine just

art. But what is art but all of our just isn't the divine art

itself. Anyway. So started out as a show where I was chronicling

my journey through finishing my master's degree. Since then, it's

become this show where I talk about just. I take on this posture

as a I am the lifelong student and that you don't have to go to

an institution to continue to learn and to study theology. Theology

is for everyone is what one of the taglines for the show is. And

so the show more so just covers like, okay, I've been reading

this book. I've been studying for these sermons. I've been listening

to these podcasts and these are the things that I'm learning

and want to share with you all. Kung Fu Pizza Party is completely

different. It is a show where I promise to deliver high flying

action in 30 minutes or less and serve up some wisdom one slice

at a time. Primarily through reviewing what I have broadly called

martial art media, but more so like kung fu, ninja and samurai movies.

So talk about everything from Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan to maybe

some like, not necessarily like traditional kung fu content.

Like, I did a review of the Adult Swim cartoon Primal last year.

I covered the first two seasons and try to like pull some,

you know, what is naturally coming up in the content as a way

to like, talk about. Usually it's a. It's not like strictly like

a faith show. Like, I'm not trying to show you how Jesus is in

every Bruce Lee movie, but rather just kind of like, what are

the moral implications of what is going on in this piece of me?

Yeah. You are though gonna work on a animated series of Jesus

teaching us kung fu, right? I think that's important.

I just saw the other day and I don't know if this is a clip from

an actual anime. I'll let Christian help me with this one.

Watches more anime than I do. It was Jesus playing tennis and it

was anime style. And his partner next to him was like, Jesus,

this match point depends on you. And he says, I did not come

here to be served. And then he serves the thing and like spikes

it and he's like, but to serve. It was all anime. I don't

know if that's a real one or not, but it made me chuckle.

Yeah, that thing that I gave me.

Love.

That definitely sounds like something someone made on their spare

time for the sake of a joke. And I love it for it.

Yeah, yeah, that, that very high quality.

If that's the case. Like, they got some art skills.

Yeah. Also I, I do want to say with Kung Fu pizza party, the 30

minutes or less thing, he started adding challenges. If he

goes over 30 minutes. And I don't think I've been invited back

as a guest since he started that. So.

Because invited you, we just haven't recorded that.

Wait, I haven't broken it yet.

No.

And you know how much I love talking.

Yeah.

But to be fair, in the opposite of defending Christian,

when he was tasked to do a 20 minute episode, like little bonus

for Christmas, he did record our longest episode of Systematic

Ecology.

You gave two episodes to cover and you knew better.

Oh, but I'm going throw out another random thing here. Since

you mentioned the Darth Jar Jar thing. My wife actually has a

Darth Jar Jar tattoo that she got recently, like this year.

I don't know your wife, but of course she does. It's great.

It's fantastic.

Adds up somehow.

It's just. It's wonderful. Okay. For myself, I'm gonna try and

do this quickly because hopefully people just know they can

listen to other episodes and learn more about the hosts. But.

Okay.

Came to Faith really fun fact. I came to Faith Really Young with.

I don't remember if it was children's church or what it was,

but the teacher was Ms. Christie. And later on when I got

like re baptized and like rededicated my life to the Lord,

it was also thanks to someone else named Ms. Christie, but not

the same person. Just, you know, fun fact. But yeah, so really

young. Traveled a lot, felt the call to ministry fairly on fighting

it. Still fighting it. Like currently I'm fighting that, I think.

But like, I don't want to do that. Come on.

But.

You know, transparency is good, I think. Grew up in a Pentecostal

home, but I have some family members who are Catholics who I had

like a lot of, you know, witnessed a lot of tension, saw some

of that kind of like making fun of Catholics or Baptists buying

each other's backs kind of stuff here and there. Heard a lot

of Catholics aren't really Christian, Baptists aren't really

Christian. Etc then I went to college and met some Catholics and

Baptists and we're like, ah, this isn't adding up. They're giving

me free food and seem to talk about Jesus a lot. And I like both

of those things quite a bit. So I started caring more about just

the idea of like other religions, other faith traditions.

I got really curious when I was like, I think maybe some of what

I've been fed wasn't completely accurate but never really

crossed the line. Just was like curious about other, other things.

And then really bad accident in 2016 kind of derailed all of my

I'm gonna do ministry and also be a full time chemist or something

and just do everything because I'm awesome track. And then realized,

oh, hey, I could just get hit by a truck. Maybe that really humbles

you pretty quickly.

So there's that Joshua's person your pastor warned you about.

You know, if you leave this church, you run over.

That's true. And that's what happened. It wasn't until after that

I ended up leaving the church. I was at. I had a point in my life,

various reasons I tried to like, I guess I was deconstructing.

But at the time it was more of a I was mad at God and didn't want

to believe. So I just tried to find a bunch of holes in my faith.

And the term deconstruction wasn't really a thing yet, so it

was more just me, I'm mad and want to not believe this thing. And

then naturally, I found a lot of things that contradicted each

other in the Bible and was like, ah. For some reason, I'm still

not satisfied. I don't. I don't know. I feel like I found the

key and I should be like, I'm done with this. But then I just wasn't.

Ended up stumbling onto, like, Pete Inn's books, some different

stuff, and going, okay, maybe there's different ways to read the

Bible, different ways to think about my faith. And now I'm kind

of a weird mixed mud of a bunch of different ideas. And I make

progressive Christians mad and conservative Christians mad. And

everybody's just mad. But they can't say too much much because I

run a church unity podcast. So there's that. So I have. That's.

Yeah, that's part of just who I am. And that's where like, we have

the whole church podcast started off as I thought it would

just be easy to have a nice, nice little unity podcast. What an

easy topic. It's not. We've learned that if you've been on listening

to the show for a while, you've also learned that with us,

we've had people straight up say unity was a bad idea at least

once on the show. So, you know, it could be a challenge. But

we've learned a lot about unity as we've done this since, what,

2019, 2018 or something? We had other podcasts and stuff before

then. This is kind of the one that stuck. And I met a lot of cool

people, like Christian. Oh, I've known Christian, but Christian's

been on the show. We've rekindled our. Our friendship through

this. I met him because of Killer Bunnies and Doctor who don't

ask Questions, but we need. I need to regather myself. But we met

Will through that. A bunch of other people through this. Will was

really cool and talked about comic book stuff, and I was like,

hey, man, I wish I could get this guy to start a comic book show.

And I couldn't convince him to start a podcast. So instead I had

to create another podcast and have him in it. And then I auditioned

other people and was like, if I get a big enough crowd, I won't

have to do that much. And I could still hear Will talk about

comics. And it worked, and now it turned into something completely

different that's this whole huge, like systematic ecology is

almost like a network within the network with all the different,

like series and different things that we do over there and

like 14 different hosts. And it's crazy, but we try to cover all

of pop culture that we can from various faith traditions over

there. We still have whole church here talking about church

unity. I've also done. I started Dummy for Theology, which

was me originally just going over big theological ideas that people

have disagreed about for like centuries and then going, hey, here's

the different things. I don't know an answer. I'm just giving you

guys different things and what the implications are, depending on

which side you take of the issue. I try to run it as a regular

podcast. That didn't work because I'm very adhd, which you

guys probably can tell. Strict schedules are hard for me, especially

when I'm trying to do something on my own. I try to create

something a little bit more genuine. So I re released it as be

Living Water. And I even said, hey, there's not going to be a strict

release schedule anymore. And to prove it, I haven't released anything

since, so. So there's that. Then. I do some of the voice work

for a friend of mine who writes like scripts and does something

for. It's called the Bible After Hours, which is just kind of

a more progressive reading of the Bible and going through scripture

kind of stuff, which I think that show. It's done Leviticus. It's

done some other random just Bible here and there. Wait, no, it

didn't do Leviticus. Christian did Leviticus. It did Judges. I help

with too many things. It did Judges. It did some of Gospels. I

think in Psalms. It's been for like forever and probably not anymore.

I'm just tired of. I don't want to hear him talk to me about

Psalms anymore. I think that's the problem. If I'm helping you on

a project and I get bored, project kind of stops happening.

Don't let me get bored. I'm like a puppy. So I think that covers

the gambit of things I know of. For those who want to know about

tj, also very similar to all of our stories, Got saved Young grew

up in the Pentecostal Church. He has changed his views on a lot

of things, but he is still with his church because that's his

church, you know.

Yeah, it's a very TJ thing.

Yeah.

Yes, it's very TJ Again, if this is your first time. Yeah.

I think his bio when I asked him to Write a bio for the whole

church. Literally was. I was born, I live. Yeah. And I. You know,

it's pretty accurate. I met TJ at a church camp. I was one of his

counselors. And want to think. One of my favorite moments in park

and Rec is when. Who's the guy Chris Pratt plays in that show?

Andy.

Andy. Yeah, Andy.

Andy.

And he's talking to Rod Swanson. He's like, come on, it's

not weird. It's kind of like, you used to be my camp counselor,

but now we're like, both old. It's cool, and we can hang out. And

he said that. I'm like, that's me and dj. Nice. Like, literally.

Yeah. So am I missing anything? Did we cover the basis

of who we are?

Yeah, I think we're gold.

Okay, cool. It would help if TJ was here. What all do we do on

our various shows last year that we're most proud of? Okay, that's.

That's an easy one. Brandon, recently you've had an episode on

my Seminary Area life talking about 2025. They can just go listen

to it. But what's. What's the short, short end of it? If you were

just.

The short end of it is this year saw the return of a Lent themed

series that I do every year or I. I'm now going to start doing every

year. It's called Fish Fridays. They come out every Friday.

So every Friday from Ash Wednesday to Good Friday. And it

kind of takes a different. It's looked different every year.

This year was more devotional focused. Next year are we going to

talk about stuff coming out next year or 26 years? I'll save

it then. The other big thing that happened this year is I was

really focusing on two ongoing series, one called Rabbit Trail and

one called Experiential Preaching. Rabbit trail is a 10 out

of 10 would recommend. Serious concept by Christian Ashley. He has

complimented it before. Basically, instead of.

Wait, that was Christians.

It was his idea. I complimented him for it.

Yes.

Because I love the idea.

Oh, you're the IGN review on the back of the book.

Yeah.

Yes.

Okay, I need to put one.

Basically how it works is that I sit down and I talk about, hey,

this is a 5 minute recap of the sermon I preached recently. But

the bulk of the episode is. And now I'm going to tell you about

the thing that I wish I could have talked about during the sermon

that I didn't have time for. Couldn't make it fit. It's an illustration

that I thought it would go over people's heads. And that's.

So you get something kind of different. Every. Every episode there's

one coming out here pretty soon that's going to be. Or it may

have come out by the time this episode comes out. Where I'm going

to talk about, okay, this is when you should make an exception

to not going down a rabbit trail while you're preaching. And

you know, like, okay, how do you weigh when this is a good idea?

Things like that. Experiential preaching is a concept I've been

kind of working on in my own preaching. I'm sure other people

have done it. I'm not going to say I'm original in any of this,

but basically it's during a sermon. I'm trying to find moments

where I can bring the congregation into the sermon actively.

And so that looks like more than doing some big multimillion

dollar stunt that mega churches should not be doing at Christmas

time, but they always do. Or. And it's more than just the turn

to your neighbor and say, lord, greet Lord, bless you real

good. You know, it's more than just like the light crowd work stuff.

You know, in times past, I've done pausing the whole congregation

and now we're going to have a moment of meditation. Because the

sermon was about meditation. Communion, I think, is a really natural

way to have this kind of like living component in a sermon. So

that was a lot of what my seminary life was up to this year.

The most downloaded episode of 2025 was me talking about the Breastplate

of St. Patrick by Ren Collective. This is an actual prayer

that comes up in the right around St. Patrick's Day. But Ren

Collective did a whole song reworking of it. And so it was a

review I did for Fish Fridays this year. Well, I have another show,

duh, so I should talk about that now too. As for Kung Fu Pizza

Party, you know, it's a. It's way less thematically focused, whereas

my seminary life tries to focus more on series. When you're

just doing movie reviews, sometimes it's like, okay, well,

tonight I'm gonna watch a Jet Li movie. Because that's what. That's

what I'm craving is some Jet Li. I did review every Karate Kid

film in the run up to the new one, Karate Kid Legends. I also,

I was. I. Which the Karate Kid, I have the top five because

I was promoting on social media. So the most downloaded episode

of 2025 was the Karate Kid Part 2, which featured Will Rose

from Systematic Ecology and then The Karate Kid 2010 which featured

Josh here. Then I do these sporadic episodes called Coming soon

when I. It's a little bit more like movie news. And I did one in

July about the trailer that dropped for Mortal Kombat 2. And

also the cast listing for Street Fighter had just come out

and broke the Internet. Number four was my review of the Art of

Peace. A nice little a book about how we shouldn't be constantly

preparing for warfare, but preparing but kind of like life after

warfare and seeking out peace in our life rather than constant

warfare. Great little book. Don't recommend the author. That's

a good guy. And then number five was the Next Karate Kid featuring

Christian Ashley. And great news for Christian Ashley because

since the Karate Kid Part two was our undisputed champion of the

year, I'm going to re watch and re review it when the show's

anniversary happens in September. And Christian was supposed

to be on that episode originally and scheduling didn't

work out. And I feel so bad for him. He went from potentially

being on the episode. The Karate Kid Part two is oftentimes

considered the best one in the franchise. He went from. He went

from that to the one that is typically considered the worst one

in the franchise. The next Karate Kid. I don't think that I

have a bad take on that part, but. So yeah, I did two other really

cool specials this year with Kung Fu Pizza Party that I'm proud

of. One is called the Blessed Takayama Memorial Battle Royale.

Blessed Takayama was a Catholic samurai who at the blessed

status in the Catholic Church, that means he's right before sainthood.

So that's something that scholars are actively working on

to see if he performed any miracles so he can reach the level

of sainthood. He would be the first individual Japanese person

to be canonized. If that does happen. There's been groups. I don't

know how all this works. Like niche. I don't know how directly

all of this works, but there's been like groups of Japanese people

who have been canonized before. This would be the first time

someone individually who is Japanese would be canonized. So once

you hit that blessed status, you could start naming things after

them. So I named this special event where basically I pick out

30 movies and I use a random number generator and I eliminate

them. And I have to keep talking while I'm doing this. So

I'm just riffing the whole time because you're not supposed

to have dead air because then I have to edit it or not edit it.

And I should edit it better so I'm just riffing the whole time.

And then whatever movie won, which was the Clones of Bruce Lee.

No nuance. That's the name of the movie, that one. So then I had

to rewatch and re review it. And that is going to happen again

February 3rd, which is Takayama's feast day. So this is

going to be an ongoing thing. The other one I did, which I should

definitely have Josh on sometime, is called Drunken Fist

Happy Hour, where I take that 30 minutes or less stipulation, put

it to the side and just hang out and have a conversation. I did

the first one, the only one I've done so far with Mark Flower

from Grubbing Grace. We got some different beers together and

reviewed them and also paired them up with different movies and

talked about something that's really important to Mark's ministry

and his heart, which is gathering at the table and kind of

the community. Similar. Very similar to what Josh is doing here.

Just kind of a different take on the community, the unity aspect

of our faith. And so, yeah, I think that's, you know, that's a

lot of the high points for 2025 for both of my shows. Episodes,

man.

Yeah. I love Mark, and I love that episode of y' all pairing with

the beers.

No, that was it. Yeah.

Yeah. I thought there was a pizza one. I thought, too.

We did. We. We also. Yes, we did one before I came up with this

idea of the Drunken Fist Happy Hour. I. We did an episode together

the first time Mark was on the show where we paired up, where we

were coming up with pizzas and pairing them up with different movies.

And in case you've never listened to Mark's show, you should

go check him out. But he's a foodie, and he's has a lot of really

unique ideas and a lot of unique experiences when it comes

to food. So I'm over here picking out, like, Domino's, and

he's got, like, this top shelf with brie and gouda and all this

kind of stuff. I'm like, man, this guy knows his stuff.

It was so funny because he's like, okay, a pizza with a black

garlic. And I'm like, I just want to try these pizzas, man. Yeah.

But then, like, the Chicago expert, too. That was a good one.

All right, Christian, same question.

So on. Let nothing move you. I started off the year in numbers,

and then I finished off the rest of the Pentateuch that I had

started the year before. I had a great time with that one. Then

I decided one of the things instead of As I was going through

the schedule, because I go book by book, I realized, do I really

want to do, since I started with Luke, do I want to do Matthew,

Mark and then John back to back to back? Not really. So what

I wanted to do instead is like, when we reach like a natural

ending to like, you know, Pentateuch by itself, let's go to

a gospel, historical books, let's go to the next gospel, then

go through all the poetry, wisdom books, then we can finish

off with John and then I can go to the rest of the New Testament.

It's obviously years and years down the road, but I do like to plan

somewhat for parts of that. So normally I'd have other people with

me, I'd ask a couple people to go in, but I wanted to be selfish.

I want the Gospels for myself. And one of the parts of that was

because I just wanted to focus in on what I was thinking about them

and how could I properly represent what is Jesus saying in

here as best as possible? I say, like, everyone here assembled

would have terrible takes always, and I'd never listen to them

again, never want them back. But like, I just wanted to like,

narrow the focus solely on where I was going. And that was a

good choice because most of them have been over an hour and some

of them have been almost, some of them beyond two hours. And that's

just me talking. So God forbid I bring someone else into that fold,

you know, because other people have this thing called a life and

I'd rather not ruin theirs. So, yeah, I'm about to finish up

Matthew at this stage. Matthew 26 just released. I've got two more,

then I'm going in the book of Joshua and then I'll be bringing

back more people on, you know, to get there takes and everything

that's happening as we go through the historical books of the

Bible. Let's see then for Friday night frights. This is the

year where Joe actually joined me. I have been in the past put on

Facebook on the Systematic Ecology page because I'm too lazy

to make my own page for anything because I don't market.

That's not me. That's about as close as I get as posting a poll.

And he had put like, hey, if Mothman wins, I want on. I'm like,

you know what? Sure. And you know, it's nice not having to fill

in empty space by continuing to talk because eventually I run

out of breath. And it's nice to have someone like Joe along for

the ride because surprise, surprise, Joe and I Don't always

agree on everything. So it was an absolute delight to have him come

on. And he has fantastical ideas I think are stupid.

He.

I have fantastical ideas he thinks are stupid. And yet this unholy

marriage has happened, and we love each other at the end of the

day, and we get to discuss the same things and have fun with them.

I'm especially proud of one episode that I was, like, born to

hate just by the very nature of what it is. And that was the whole

hellier docu series that Joe decided to do. And he knew I would

hate it going in, so I didn't want to give him the satisfaction.

And yet I did at the end of the day, and we had a good conversation

based on, okay, why do we both not, like, what's going on here?

What could be done to improve it, but, like, what's also behind,

you know, actual stories of, you know, some of these sightings?

That was super fun to do then. On why I don't like the easiest one

yet. I released one episode a couple of days ago, and I finished

season one of Mushoku Tensei. That is the show that has immense

promise but terrible execution. And that's why I don't

like it. So there's that.

That was my least favorite episode of why I don't like this

year.

Excellent, Christian.

We should do a crossover. I've already watched it, but you should

watch Ninja Vengeance. That one I did for Ninja Vengeance. Ninja

Vengeance? Yeah, that was the one I did for International Ninja

Day. I was very sad that you didn't.

Think it was great because, like, the name sounds like something

I want to love.

Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's exactly what Christian just said

of has a lot of promise. It's a movie about a ninja going up against

the Ku Klux Klan. Of course. That should be great. And it just

majorly drops the ball.

I loved your episode. Talking about that movie I never watched.

Also, I get a lot of entertainment listening to these

things, and most of the movies you talk about on Kung Fu Pizza Party

I've never seen, but I love your reviews. It makes me feel like

I've seen them.

Oh, good. I guess that's good to know at least.

You know what, Brandon? I'm up to doing that.

Okay, Cool.

Nice. Oh, man. Yeah.

Then I suppose I'll talk about that indie podcast, Systematic Ecology.

I had a lot of fun this year. It was tiring at times. I was getting

done with seminary, and there were times like, do I want to stop

doing this? Because it's taking up time. It was also like,

I have a lot of fun doing this. I don't want to leave. I stuck

with it. We had a ton of great episodes this year. I mean, I can't

list them all. I mean, I had a great time with Kevin doing what

if Leia had Trained Ben Solo instead, where I redeemed the sequel

trilogy from being the absolute abysmal dumpster fire that

it is alongside him. You can boo me all you want. I'm right at

the end of the day. Let's see. I had a great time discussing the

super Jertastic films with, once again, Kevin and Will and Andy

Josh, and did a great episode where we did our favorite companions

of Doctor who.

It.

I mean, it's. There's not a lot. I mean, I remember doing them,

but I can't remember, like, everything I've been in because I've

been in a lot, so I can't, like, list them all off. We'll be

here all day. So, yeah, I really enjoyed doing that. Now, like,

my top five downloaded. I didn't write that down because it's

not that I'm don't like numbers. It's that I don't think

to look at them. But I did at least look at, like, the top two

for let nothing move. You know, that was Deuteronomy 32, which

was with Joshua, where we discussed some of what Dr. Heiser

had done as well. And the reason that number was so high, because

it crossed over the whole church, which has more, you know,

people listening than my show.

I'm sorry. Just because we've been on so long. Like, I really think

it's just that consistency of TJ always being here.

No one's gonna listen to this episode because TJ's not here.

They're like, where's TJ?

We're officially wasting our time.

We're gonna keep going.

And I think my next Highest one was Matthew 2. And suspiciously,

that kind of happened around this Christmas season because I had

released that last year. So. You know what? I'll take the W. Yeah.

It's funny because Systematic Ecology, depending on what metric

you look at, has three different top downloaded episode.

Spotify thinks it was Will's episode with John Hendrix when they

were talking about the. Let's see, he didn't do the Bonhoeffer.

He did the Mythmakers. Yeah. With Lewis and. Yeah. I had to look.

Turn around and look at the name of the book, which was great.

Where we actually get most of our numbers from our hosting platform

seems to Think it's Must We Attack the Cyclones Again? An episode

that you released last year with Tripolar that was a primarily

political episode. And then Google Analytics, for some reason

they it thinks that our top episode was what's News episode.

I think you were also on talking about Peacemaker, Strange

New Worlds and some other stuff. Yes. So who knows what the

top episode of Systematic Ecology was?

I did look at the Friday night fright numbers out of curiosity,

and it was like the. Did King Arthur exist? It was one of those

where Joe was convinced we would be talking for like 10 minutes

and yet he forgot who he was dealing with. And we talked for almost

an hour.

Yeah, take that. Oh, man. So no whole church. We do got some consistency

here. The only one. Google told me something else. I don't remember

what it told me, but both Spotify and our hosting platform

thinks it was our episode with Dr. Beth Allison, Dr. Beth Allison

Barr. So our episode with her was number one according to Spotify

and Google, which was cool. I think I really liked the series we

did on Whole Church this year where we did the job fair, talking

to people just about how their faith helps in their regular day

jobs. And then we did a science fair that wasn't planned,

but I really like how that worked out. The science fair was,

of course, building up to your Matter Matters, a podcast with in

association with the ELCA that Pastor Will Rose is going to be creating

and I'm going to help edit and it's going to be up here on the network

soon. So it'll be ELCA slash on the podcast. Podcast. Yeah. Trying

to think what it was. So I did say this magnet, whole church, I

don't know the top ones for the other ones barely released anything.

So it was probably when I did the name change and people were like,

hey, what's that for? Be Living Water. Yeah. Yeah. I really

don't know about the Bible after hours, but I could look. It

probably wouldn't be hard to look. Let's see. I'll look at Spotify

because that one's always easy. But yeah, I like the series

we did on the whole church. I like the different things we did

on Systematic Ecology. So we always have like an annual theme

and usually it's really just an extra series that we do. So this

year it was. The theme was supposed to be polarization and the

series was like Finding the Good. But I feel like for a couple

of these, we did these like mashup or Versus films, like what

we did for Halloween where like monster mashups and I Like how

it played into the annual theme. So we started treating the

theme more like a theme and instead of just a series. So I'm

hoping that we see more of that in 2026 for systematic ecology.

I. Oh, there's not even a top episode. There's not enough downloads

for the Bible After Hours to know. Yeah, that's why.

Gotcha.

Nice.

Which means everybody, you owe the Bible After Hours a download

today.

Yeah.

You always finish what you're listening to first and then you go

listen to something. Yeah.

Well, it's really funny.

Was your favorite here. I'll just podcast those for a second.

Josh, what is your favorite episode since you, like, contribute

so much to the Bible? What was your favorite one?

Man, I think I liked all of the judges ones, really. I enjoyed

except for like the last two when there were some stuff that were

in the script that was wrong. And then I fumbled because I saw

something incorrect and I was like, I don't know how to do the

script now. So that. That was a struggle. But I liked some of the

earlier ones, especially with like, Deborah and when you get into,

like, Gideon, I think that that was a really fun episode to

do. Oh, okay. Yeah, yeah. So those are fun as far as what's funny

about that too. So whole Church and Systematic Ecology both

have at least 10 people that that's their, like, in their top

five podcasts. And I'm like, hold up. You're telling me y' all

have enough time to listen to these shows that much? And we can't

even get enough people to listen to Bible After Hours to get

numbers? Maybe it's because I'm not releasing episodes. Maybe

it's my fault. Yeah, probably. It's fine though. Don't worry about

it, guys. So we're gonna go ahead and move on.

This is going to be the year of the Bible After Hours.

You know what? It might. Just because of that.

Out of spite.

Yeah, it was like. So there's like 25 people for both whole church

and SG that according to Spotify, that were top 10 wearing

their top 10 podcast, which is kind of cool.

That's cool.

If I, you know, wasn't as lazy, we probably would have done

all those, like, recorded thank yous for all those people.

But I'm lazy. So we're gonna go ahead and move on. What's next

for our shows coming up in the next year? Brandon, you already kind

of started a little bit and I know you're ready to go, and I'm

coming up on time, so I need to stop Being adhd. So, Brandon,

what's next?

All right, so I'll be quick then. So when it comes to my seminary

life, you can listen to. The 2026 preview episode has just come

out recently. I'm kind of keeping things under wraps a little

bit as to what's going on on the show in 2026, other than I have

announced that, yes, there will be another round of Fish Fridays.

So that will be running from mid February to, I think it's the

first week of April. And this year is called My Seminary Life Presents

Fish Fridays the Musical. I will elaborate. So for each week,

I'm so excited. It's still going to be like a little bit more

devotional focus. But each week I have chosen a song that I

think connects to the themes, the postures, the. The usual scriptures

that come up during the Lent season. These are gonna be praise

songs, hymns, ccm, and then just like regular old pop music.

We're gonna have kind of the gamut of things here. Only seven

episodes, so there's probably other great songs that aren't going

to be represented in this series. But I'm very excited for

that. Other than that, I'm keeping things kind of wrapped up.

You're gonna have to just show up and check it out to find out what's

going on.

But if anybody wants to support any of my shows on our official

websites for like a hundred dollars a month, I will release my

own episode each week. That is the veggietale song he could have

chose.

That's a wonderful.

Yeah. He followed up with what Brandon could have said was my belly

button by.

His cheeseburger. We are the Pirates who Don't Do Anything.

It's gonna be a phenomenal series. We're just waiting on a single

person to decide to donate a hundred dollars a month. Month. So

if that's you, now's the time to act.

There you go.

The change you want to see in the world.

So that's MSL when it comes to Kung Fu Pizza Party. I am adopting

the year long overarching series approach for this year with

Mortal Kombat 2 and Street Fighter both getting new films in

2026 and actually like several additional video games, getting film

adaptions throughout the year. A lot of video game creators I've

seen are saying that we are entering or have entered the era

of the video game movie. And a lot of it is because the Sonic the

Hedgehog film was so dang good that now we're actually getting some

good quality video game films. And so with that this year is going

to be the year that Kung Fu Pizza Party goes to the arcade. So

at bare minimum, the hope is that each month I'll be releasing

an episode that ties video games and the martial arts together.

Obviously there are some easy picks there, like the original Mortal

Kombat, Immortal Combat Annihilation films, the Jean Claude

Van Damme Street Fighter film. Got a couple other things in the

works as well. So I'm excited to do that and see how that works.

So is this when you also reveal that a show called Kung Fu

Pizza Party that's going to be doing a video game here surprisingly

has the ninja Turtle Michelangelo working with producer

Cooper to come up with your themes? Or is that we're going to

reveal that later?

We can reveal that one later.

Okay. I love it. It's cowabunga.

Cowabunga. Yeah, I, yeah, I'm excited just to kind of give this

a try and if it works, you know, try and figure out how to have

like a overarching theme every year moving forward. But got a couple

other things in the works. Like I said with Kung Fu Pizza Party,

it's kind of nice just having something casual where I'm like,

okay, I just finished this show, so I guess I'll talk about

it now versus like my seminary life where there's been times of

like, okay, gotta stay within these parameters and talk about this

stuff. It's very freaking.

Yeah, Yeah. I love both a lot. And I'm really glad Kung Fu Pizza

Party comes out on like Fridays because by that point, like,

I'm listening to all my, like, news podcasts and everything and

I'm like, man, here's something that's just fun. It does

just feel better, you know.

Good, good. That is my hope. I just. This is supposed to be the

fun. It does get serious a lot of times talking about some of these

themes that come up in the movies.

Oh, yeah.

But I'm also hoping my intention for Kung Fu Pizza Party

was to be a more guest oriented series versus my seminary

life. I think there's room for improvement. So I'm hoping to have

more guests on in 2026. Josh is already lined up for one. Joe

Day is lined up for one. He's probably going to be lined up for

a lot because I'm doing 90s video game content, so I'm sure he's

gonna want to hop in a lot of those. But so, yeah, I'm sure. I

mean, I already said Christian's gonna be back, so I got

a couple shows I'm networking with that. Kind of got to know through

Instagram to hopefully show up here in 2026. So hopefully be hearing

some new voices as well.

Yeah, Christian will be back and quieter than ever. Speaking of

which, Christian, that's an inside joke. Sorry, guys.

Yeah, for some reason, my audio doesn't like working with other

people. I don't know why. I'm just a guy who talks. I don't edit.

And that's the theme of my other shows. If I didn't have Joshua

editing, let nothing move you, I'd just release it as is. And you

know what? I know some people don't like that. And you know what?

Go in peace. That's who I am. So what am I preparing? Well, I did

mention it earlier, like, I'm finishing up Matthew, and that means

I'm going back into the historical books of the Bible. I'll

be starting off with Joshua, going all the way to Esther. Whenever

that ends, it ends. I don't plan out that far in advance. There's

also sometimes when I say, hey, I'm planning to do like one

or two chapters, and someone says, but I really want to focus

on this one, and I may give in to their demands like I have done

with Joshua in the past. No, it all kind of depends. So when that

ends, who knows? The good news is, I mean, outside of the other

good news is that the Bible is really long and I have many opportunities

to continue doing this. And somehow if I'm still doing this and

I finish Revelation, I guess I can start from the beginning again.

You know, it'll be fine.

Or by then I'll convince you that Enoch should count.

Well, if you have as many schedule slips as last time, I'll

have covered first Enoch, because that's what I do when someone

can't show up. I go to the Pseudepigrapha or Apocrypha, which

is fun, but, you know, it only happens because of someone else.

There's always the Book of Mormon too.

That's true. I got a copy on my bookshelf.

I mean, I do too. I've got the Quran too, if I really wanted to

throw out the hair. So we can do that Bible fan.

Fiction, there's always the Book of Mormon. So.

Also, for the record, the whole church does still love all

of our Mormon listeners and former guests. We just also don't

agree with everything.

The viewpoint of the guy with the beard does not reflect. Yeah.

Removing him from the ministry, so. Oh, I'm not done, Joshua.

Fine.

I mean, unless you wanted to talk about what I was talking about.

I was just gonna say I I do actually appreciate how you just

group chapters together. And even though I'm like, I want this

one, you're like, we're doing these three. And at least on one

occasion I picked a chapter because I want to talk about a specific

verse that I didn't have enough to say. And then we end up

talking way more about one of the other chapters I have had no

plans to talk about at all. So that was great.

It's a bit of godly serendipity providence at work. So

yeah, that's it for let nothing move you on the other shows

I am planning for why I don't like to actually finish Mushoku Tensei,

which would require me to do another season. And that's 20 some

episodes. It take about six and I'm not going to say the other

number ish episodes to complete that six. I hate you and

everything you represent. Then after that, my plan is to go through

the sequel trilogy because I don't like the sequel trilogy and

there's one thing I actually hate about it and it's been years

since I've watched it. So maybe I will find some redeeming

factors in the abomination of desolation and the reason why God

turned his back on humanity. But you know what? We shall see.

And then after that I do plan, if I get that far, to go and do the

one more day storyline for the Amazing Spider man where I'll be

starting off with a couple issues earlier and civil war to build

up to why that happened. So that's for why I don't like.

That is an easy one to do too. Man, that's bad.

Oh gosh, yes. It's godforsaken. Some would say.

Yeah.

Then let's see other shows that I'm on. I am systematic ecology

is what it is. I'll continue to show up, you know, as needed and

then some because that's just how it goes. I am planning. I have

not finalized things, so I have not actually brought this up.

So I guess I'm bringing it up right now live on the air, you know,

when this actually releases. Weeks from now, a week from tomorrow

to actually one thing, one thing I used to do back in the day

was I would. I did this thing called Spidey Swing buys for our

YouTube page on systematic ecology. My idea is to just drop

all premise of just one issue. Just like do one or two at a time

and just release it as is in podcast form While also doing the

YouTube thing. So I have not finalized that idea, but, you know,

just for the sake.

Of bringing it up, I like it. I like it. I. We don't have a ton

of time here, so I will say whole church. I don't know all of

our plans, we've not planned as far in advance as usual, but I

do know we plan on doing a series soon that's going to be behind,

I don't know, behind the stage, behind the scenes, behind

the pulpit something. And just kind of looking at like, what's it

take to get a pastor hired? What goes into the music that plays

at your church? What goes into these church events and just kind

of looking, you know, behind the scenes a little bit. So I think

that'll be a fun one. Something a little bit more unique

for Systematic ecology. We are doing an annual theme this year that

is the faces behind us looking at the inspirations behind our main

characters. Instead of talking about Spider man, we'll talk about

like Aunt May and like the first one up in that that I'm super

excited for. I'm recording like next week and I'm going to be

talking about Uncle Iroh and that's gonna be great. He's just

hero among heroes. And sometimes you just got to remember

those things that inspire our heroes to be who they are, the reason

behind the season, you know. So I think that'll be a really fun

series. Seeing what we're gonna do with that, seeing some of

the different stuff that's going on over there and that show's

always growing and expanding and changing. That'll be really cool.

Some of the other shows we have in line with up, we have a few

we're in talks with that are going to be more female led podcast.

So you need some more women leadership representation. I'm excited

for that on the network. Yeah. I don't want to say too much until

that's officially on board, but we do also have a couple of those

female led ones will be more science specific if they join in.

One of them is more theology leaning, so we'll see if those play

out. And of course, we do have coming. I've already mentioned it.

Pastor Will Rose with Thomas Johnston are releasing your Matter

Matters, which is a faith and science podcast in association with

the ELCA being released on the Anazole Podcast Network. And we might

have a few others. Brandon mentioned somebody he knows might

be interested in doing something and I know we've been in

talks about some stuff. So I want to see more growth this Year

we kind of been all doing our own thing. And that's mostly because,

like, we all have busy, crazy lives and we still love each other.

It's not like we stopped being on each other's podcast and stopped

wanting to do more. It's just there's only so much you can do,

you know, Josh can only.

Talk for so long in a 30 minute time stream.

Yeah, I can only talk for two hours each. 30 minutes. Oh, man.

All that said, what else do you guys think that people might

want to know about Amazon podcast network in 2026? Oh, actually

I got something I am thinking of and probably going to be creating

a website with our own merch for the network that will also link

to everyone else's website. So it'll be more of like an actual hub.

So it'll be kind of cool. So you'll get a little bit more stuff

from the network and not just these shows. All say this thing that

says network. What is the network work? Yeah, and more shirts.

Because who doesn't want more merch?

I will say real quickly, I. I did forget Friday Night Frights.

Joe and I will get back to that at some point. We've been on

an hiatus because all my jokes to the side, I do actually have a

life and he has a life of his own too. So even though we only do

monthly, sometimes that gets in the way because you kind of restrict

yourself to a Friday and sometimes those Fridays don't work

out. So we'll be back eventually. Pretty soon.

I thought I saw one like last month. Right? Or the month before.

Two months.

Okay. I was like. Because I knew it was gone for a while and

then I thought it had come back and then I thought it was gone

again and now I'm just confused. Yeah, it's fine. It's nowhere

near as bad as Living Water or Bible after Hours. So as long as

you're beating that.

Bar, it turns out that when your own life is hard enough and

you add another person into the equation, it complicates matters.

Yeah, I think what you should do is beat the other person up until

they show up all the time.

Joe suffered enough this year.

Lock them in your closet and only release him for podcast.

No, I won't be the one that.

Does that to him.

Yeah, I mean, clearly I don't actually do such things either. That's

why TJ is present right now. He's here. So before we wrap up,

we do always like to ask everybody for a single tangible action

that would help better engender Christian in Unity today

I actually want to ask, what do you think our listeners could

do to help better support our network or, you know, your shows

specifically, anything like that? Yeah. Yeah. What do you think,

Brandon?

I think for supporting the network, my big thing, if you're

looking for an easy late New Year's resolution, it would be just

try something new. We have quite the variety of different things

here and clearly we're gonna have. It sounds like some new shows.

At least one. At least one here on the network before the end

of 2026. So, you know, just try something new. If you're usually

here for the. The whole church content because you're a Bible nerd

and the idea of listening to me talk about kung fu movies seems

a bit of a stretch for you, then maybe just give it a try for

a month. You don't have to stick around, but just give it a

try. Same with, like, you know, you know, Same with, you know,

if you are the geeky content, you're listening to Systematic Ecology

religiously and you just dropped in for this episode because

it's. It's Christian, it's Josh, you thought T.J. was gonna

be here too, then maybe you should stick around and listen to

the. The more churchy Bible content here on whole church or let

nothing move you with Christians. So that would be my thing

is, you know, just give something a try. We have. What do

we have, 10 shows? We have like 10 shows or something. Like

I'm. If you're not listening to all of them, just pick one. Clearly

the Bible after hours one of you needs to go listen to. So just

give something a try.

Yeah, the Bible afterwards could use some list Christian. What

about you, man?

Yeah, I'll go along with Brandon in a very similar fashion.

It's like if. But I'll go in a slightly different direction. If

one of these shows is one of you're afraid to get into them. Because

I'm afraid this goes against my theology. I argue to fight against

that for a second. I'm not asking you to give up your theology.

What I'm asking is that you who's talking, what are they saying?

Why did they think the way that they do? That is a reason why

I am subscribed to the Bible after hours whenever it does release.

I probably disagree 90% of whatever he says, but what it helps

me do is. Helps me. Here's how he came to this conclusion using

the same scripture I read. So what am I going to do with that?

Am I going to say he's an idiot or am I going to say, okay,

why do I disagree with him? If we were to have a conversation together,

what would I say? How could we have a dialogue about this? And that

improves my understanding of what I already think about, but also

forces me to confront why I think the way that I do. So I'd encourage

you to do that.

Yeah. Which now we're 15 minutes in an hour, 10 minutes in

something. That's the whole reason the network exists. Well,

the whole reason network exists is so that we can all be friends

and bum off of each other and just have one network instead of

all paying for separate, separate hosting platforms. But if

we're going to be less honest about why it exists and just tell

you, like, what our shared kind of goal is for all the podcasts

on our network and when we add new shows, this is actually what

we keep in mind is like, are you honestly asking questions about

whatever it is, whether it's the Bible, pop culture, whatever

we want to be podcast that's genuinely asking the questions and

not just acting like we think we have all the answers or trying

to fit Jesus in to every little square. It's more of a. Are

we honestly engaging with whatever it is we're talking about

because we want to be like Christians that aren't afraid of

the big questions or something. I forget what the. The

slogan is. It's not a good slogan, but I.

Just work here with that in mind. Your other goal for 2026, better

slogans.

With that in mind, though, I. I think a good way to support us

would be keep us honest. Listen to the other shows. And even

if you disagree with Christians reading the Bible like

I often do, there's a place where you can email the podcast.

There's. You could probably find Christian on some social media

or something and be like, hey, you said this. I think you weren't

really engaging with this properly, or I think you're wrong

about this, or something like, keep us honest. Honest. We want to

hear from people. We want to engage. We don't want to just be

acting like we have all the answers. So I think that's probably

the best way to support us. And it's not a good business answer.

Like, I should be saying, money, give me the money, SpongeBob.

But instead, like, honestly, we don't do this for money. And I

think the best way to support us is just engaging and keeping us

honest with what we claim to be doing. Yeah. So if we do that.

Well, you know what? Let's not. Let's not do that. Christian,

your turn. Could you actually lead us in prayer for this next year

and pray that we just kind of do stay on track with that, being

honest, engaging with stuff genuinely and not just kind of putting

our own agendas and act like we have all the answers and keeping

ourselves humble stuff.

Well, before we start, does everyone remember that part where

Brandon said he read the outline to make sure. Okay, he's

going to call me out here to do this? This was not part of the

outline.

It just says, let's pray it does.

I'm always ready.

Yeah.

So let's do this thing. Lord, thank you for this opportunity for

us all to be together to talk about the stuff that we love doing

and the topics that we want to discuss, the questions we need to

ask, you know, the answers that may come or may not come and

how we wrestle with that, how we can all work together despite

our many differences when it comes to theology, when it comes

to interpretation, and how we can continue to love each other despite

this and because ultimately we love you more than we love how we

think and continue to remind us of who you are and what you're

going to be doing with us and bring us closer to you in accordance

to your will, not ours.

Amen. Amen.

Amen.

Thank you, Griffin with that, guys. I hope you all prayed with

us or at the very least when you're not driving and take time

and close your eyes and just say a quick prayer with for our show

and for yourself. If you're going to keep engaging with us, pray

that you can pray for yourself and how you're engaging as well.

Because we don't want to do this and then not do anything for

you. You know, we don't want to just be spinning the wheels with

that though we do always like to end our show with a God moment.

Just I'm sharing a place where we've seen God recently in our lives.

Challenge, blessing, etc, Christian does need to keep it to

one because we have one minute left of this show. Mine's gonna be

quick, easy, ish. Christmas Day, my father in law came over and

he was wearing a Systematic ecology shirt when he came to see

us. And I was like, whoa, he is supporting us. And that meant

just the world to me that he was just being supportive. And then

I went to my parents home for their Christmas and my uncle was

also wearing a Systematic Ecology shirt that I got him. And

I was like, I don't know, something about just seeing people

supporting us genuinely. And I just, I don't know, did my heart

good. So that's my blessing. Christian, one moment. What is it?

For those who don't know, I've been in the job hunt ever since I

graduated from seminary in May. And I'm not here to tell you

that I've suddenly found a job and everything has turned around.

I was about to jump out of.

My I would love to have announced this year, but it's not

true. And that has been very tiring and taxing and it's caused

a lot of harm to me spiritually and emotionally. And

yet at the same time, what it has forced me to do is increase my

reliance on God and I'm very grateful for that. Also, real quick,

Mailyn's here and I love her and that's my niece so too.

Ha.

Take that.

I also love Malin Brandon and what's where's somewhere you've seen

God in recently.

You know, I'll just be quick. Christmas morning with the three

year old is awesome. Just there's a whole Christmas season

with 3 year old is is very magical and just very enjoyable.

Yeah, I like it. I like it short, sweet, to the point with that.

Guys, thank you all so much for your time. Thank you Christian

and Brandon for your time. Please, if you enjoyed this episode,

consider sharing it with a friend, an enemy or a cousin. If

you didn't enjoy it, consider sharing it with an enemy, friend

or cousin. Either way, just share it, okay? Makes TJ happy and

he's pot almighty. You got to do what he wants. Again, remember

those T shirts that I mentioned? Check them out. They're

a good way to support our show. Send a little money to the

podcast and let other people know about our efforts to educate.

You know, unite the church, do a fate, do us the favor. Check out

that link in the show notes for the all of the Amazon Podcast

Network. See these other shows that we've been talking about for

the last hour and 15, 20 minutes. I think you'll enjoy them.

Christian Ashley, let nothing move you Friday night Frights Systematic

Ecology why I don't like Clyde Swing by Magic Bald Head.

Man to Christian Ashley, let nothing move you. I was like oh cool.

Send them off with a nice little on the back.

Brandon Knights My Seminary Life Kung Fu Pizza Party TJ Blackwell

the whole Church Podcast Systematic Ecology Joshua Null Be

Living Water Bible after hours just stuff you know and then will

Rose the Homo Emily, your manner matters. There's probably

more than I'm missing. Just check it out. Check out that link.

We hope you enjoyed this. Coming soon will be Thomas J. Ord

to discuss with me and TJ about what? How our views have changed

over the years. Doing this podcast. Then we're gonna have on

Russ Petrus of Future Church and Catholic Women preach to discuss

recent discussions, decisions by the Catholic Church and where

his organizations might be held heading next. After that, we'll

be having Eric Nevins back on our show to discuss the start start

discuss the State of Christian podcast in 2026. And finally, at

the end of season one, Francis Chan will be on. But he doesn't know

about it, so you got to tell him.

Join the network, Francis.

Yeah, Francis.

Francis, Francis.