Dale Partridge - Real Christianity #100： The Future of Real Christianity

00:00:00.000 Welcome to Real Christianity, a weekly show designed to help Christians know their Bible,

00:00:04.940 defend their faith, and truly understand what it means to follow Jesus.

00:00:08.980 The premise is simple. The culture is getting louder. The church is getting flashier,

00:00:13.840 but few pastors are teaching on how to live a biblical life.

00:00:17.780 My name is Dale Partridge, along with my incredible wife, Veronica.

00:00:21.180 Join us as we start an important conversation about what it really means to be a Christian.

00:00:30.000 Transcription by CastingWords

00:01:00.000 Welcome guys. Today we have a special show and it's titled The Future of Real Christianity,

00:01:06.240 episode number 100. 100 episodes. Guys, we've been doing these podcasts and we haven't missed

00:01:14.300 one episode for two years. Really? Yeah. Which tell you what, guys. We've come very close to

00:01:22.460 missing out. We've come very close. Yeah. We're recording like at 10 p.m. the night before it

00:01:27.760 drops at 4 a.m. or 6 a.m. whenever it comes out on Eastern time. So we are just celebrating the

00:01:34.280 fact that we actually have done two years of this. I wanted to share a few stats about the show

00:01:41.120 and give you guys an update about the future of the show. We are going to change the format of

00:01:47.860 the show and have a new structure and some things are going to be shifting that are good.

00:01:53.700 but we want to share that with you. But before I jump in on that, I just want to tell you what

00:01:58.080 we've accomplished because it's really just the Lord's work and it's really beautiful.

00:02:02.940 So at the time of this recording, we have 1,847,496 episode downloads. And that just blows my

00:02:13.840 mind. There might actually even be more because there was a pruning of and cleaning of downloads

00:02:22.060 through our host. And so they might actually, it might actually be more than that. But even still,

00:02:28.820 I just go, wow, 1.8 million people have downloaded a Real Christianity podcast episode.

00:02:36.820 I guess it's not actually that many people. It's probably more like a couple hundred thousand

00:02:40.880 have downloaded several. But this equals out to be about 25 to 30,000 weekly individual listeners

00:02:48.460 of the show. And so think about this with me for a second. It's like a church of 25 to 30,000 people

00:02:56.020 every Wednesday. And so that's how I think about it when I prepare my notes and when I pray about

00:03:04.980 the show, because it is a massive audience that the Lord has given us to steward. A couple other

00:03:13.140 interesting stats is that Real Christianity has 5,322 reviews, which puts the show in the top

00:03:22.220 1% of most reviewed podcasts. And these are some fun stats that have different apps that tell us

00:03:28.920 these things. So the largest podcast category on iTunes is the religion and spirituality podcast

00:03:37.100 category. I thought that was interesting. That is interesting. I think it's probably because

00:03:41.120 you know, every church. And it's every, every religion. Yes. And so in that category of

00:03:48.100 religion and spirituality, uh, 99,390 shows exist and real Christianity regularly sits in the top

00:03:58.360 200 of those 99,000 shows. Uh, we've actually appeared in the top 10 a few times and the top

00:04:06.780 100, about six out of 10 weeks. So we're regularly in the top 100. And that is just because the Lord

00:04:15.380 and because you guys have been faithful and loyal listeners to the show. So we want to thank you

00:04:20.380 about that. The show has listeners in 120 countries. Amazing. You look at this map and

00:04:28.100 you're like, wow, there are people listening in countries that I forgot about in terms of just

00:04:33.080 like wow my geography is so bad um and we're on every single continent except antarctica um we

00:04:40.580 just got to find one listener to like tune in whoever lives down there i don't think anyone

00:04:45.740 lives down there either so yeah veronica is going to share just a little bit about some of the

00:04:49.940 episodes that we've done yeah i want to share with you guys our top five episodes the most listened

00:04:54.940 to episodes that we've ever done um in case you guys want to go back and listen to any of them

00:04:59.960 yeah episode well number one would be episode number 68 the bible's position on tattoos marijuana

00:05:06.240 and alcohol yeah that was a i think a lot of people are that number one that's the number one

00:05:10.620 yeah that was the number one listen to yeah i think people really want a practical obviously

00:05:16.260 just they're looking for practical information like how should we be viewing these things

00:05:19.940 fascinating to me because if i were to see like all our podcasts written out on a board or something

00:05:24.180 i would not have thought that that would have been number one but yeah um okay number two is 0.97

00:05:28.740 episode 33 should christian women wear a head covering while praying or prophesying that one

00:05:33.740 was very popular i remember when that one came out um number three episode 65 should christians

00:05:41.080 celebrate halloween uh number four episode 81 the bible on yoga the enneagram and progressive

00:05:48.020 christianity and then number five has two episode because they were two episodes because they were

00:05:52.480 tide episode 58 is your worship music teaching false doctrine and episode 67 the self-love

00:05:59.700 delusion yeah and i again like it makes sense i thought the yoga the enneagram progressive

00:06:05.540 christianity episode would definitely be popular um uh the halloween episode you know i think we

00:06:11.800 did that even twice different versions of that one each year each year years yeah yeah so uh when

00:06:18.440 that time comes around again. But yeah, is your worship music teaching false doctrine? That one's

00:06:23.540 probably one of my favorite episodes because the more and more we've learned the richness of

00:06:28.920 biblical hymns, and we love hymns now because the richness of the lyrics and that the songwriters

00:06:39.060 have the same accountability to write biblically accurate song lyrics as pastors do in writing

00:06:44.900 biblically accurate sermons and so that's just a fun episode um yeah and then the false uh or the

00:06:51.260 the self delusion or self-love delusion we live in a self-love culture uh that's a good one to

00:06:56.400 listen to episode 67 yeah i would have thought that that one would have done better than the

00:07:00.300 number one episode just because of yeah the culture that we live in right now everyone is

00:07:04.460 always talking about self-love so yeah so i mean it still did well obviously it's in the top five

00:07:09.020 but anyway. Fascinating. So for those of you who have been with us since the very beginning,

00:07:15.640 you know that we started this podcast under the name Ultimate Marriage. And for the first 30

00:07:19.500 episodes or so, we just covered marriage and family. And then we shifted to the name Real

00:07:28.000 Christianity. So we have a program still. It's a six-week marriage program called

00:07:32.640 ultimate marriage.com. And it's a biblical marriage mentor program. And we basically

00:07:39.060 touched on a handful of those topics of the program. But then we decided, you know what,

00:07:45.040 we want to talk about things outside of marriage and family that our name kind of limited us to.

00:07:52.480 So we changed it to Real Christianity about 18 months ago, and it gave us an ability to cover

00:07:58.420 a broader base of topics. So we actually want to continue that journey of growing and evolving

00:08:05.380 real Christianity. We're going to keep the name the same, so that's going to stay the same.

00:08:10.240 But we really enjoy searching the scriptures to discover the Bible's instruction and wisdom

00:08:16.320 on two really main issues. One is theology, which covers a lot, right? We can just fit almost

00:08:22.780 everything in theology, but getting down to understanding the Lord in a theological sense,

00:08:28.420 how does it work together in the Bible? You know, we think about the great commandment is to love

00:08:33.460 the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind, and to really

00:08:37.340 emphasize that last category of mental understanding of the Lord, because the heart can't

00:08:45.180 rejoice in what the mind does not understand. And so it gives us a really beautiful chance to help

00:08:51.980 explain some of these deeper and more difficult topics of theology. The second category that I

00:08:57.260 want to focus on is church. You guys know that our heart is we are church planting, a house church

00:09:03.460 planting ministry, but really the ecclesiological doctrines of church. How should church be

00:09:08.940 operating? What should church look like? What does the Bible say about church? So those two

00:09:13.640 categories, theology and church, are going to be the future focus of the show. And we're also

00:09:19.840 planning to make a handful of other shifts, and there's about five of them, and I'll let Veronica 0.98

00:09:25.100 open up with the big one. All righty. Change, shift, shift to number one. Um, yeah, I will 0.99

00:09:32.560 actually no longer be on the podcast. Um, as a pastor's wife and a mother to three young children

00:09:39.480 in homeschooling, um, and the stress and trials that come with local ministry, um, I've prayerfully

00:09:46.840 decided that it's actually more fruitful, uh, for my first ministry, which is our family,

00:09:52.740 um to actually separate myself a bit from the public ministry online um so much time and energy

00:10:01.880 go in to putting a podcast out research um taking notes studying things like that and

00:10:08.840 dale's the type of personality that he can just whip up his notes really quick and just kind of

00:10:13.800 go off the fly type of thing where i am much more like i need to sit down and write out my notes and

00:10:21.160 take, you know, write them all down and think about what I'm going to say. Um, I'm not very

00:10:27.460 good on my feet. And so, um, it just takes a lot of time, um, for me to be doing this every single

00:10:36.340 week. Um, now this doesn't mean that I might not jump back in, um, sometime in the future,

00:10:42.760 but right now in the midst of some very difficult times in our world, um, we simply believe it's

00:10:50.100 best to just allow me to focus my efforts on serving our family and our local church.

00:10:56.220 Yeah. And this is, you know, this is a hard decision, but, you know, Veronica is my support

00:11:02.480 also in terms of as just being a wife. And, uh, when she's out in the front, uh, in the public eye

00:11:10.700 and, and, you know, getting critiqued as much as I get critiqued and, and having to do theological

00:11:15.420 study. And, you know, it really takes away from her ability to support our home and support me

00:11:24.680 in a sense, because it's got a burden on her of ministry that is a lot. It's just a lot to do the

00:11:34.260 online ministry, the podcast, to do all the home stuff. I'm pastoring a local church as well. And

00:11:42.080 And so there's all the relationships there.

00:11:44.240 And in a house church, sure, it's smaller, but it's deeper.

00:11:48.340 And so there's deep relationships through these communities.

00:11:55.040 And we just think that it's a wise investment for the time, especially because our kids are young.

00:12:01.480 We're not going to get this time back.

00:12:02.820 And our kids are little right now, and we want to take care of them and really pay attention to them in this time.

00:12:08.000 We don't want to create the kids that go, mom and dad, we're always doing ministry and forgot about us or put ministry before us.

00:12:16.780 And yeah, have it turn into any type of bitterness.

00:12:20.160 Yes. Towards ministry. Yeah. So this is just a wise decision, I think.

00:12:24.560 Second, so Veronica's leaving as number one.

00:12:26.960 Number two is we're going to actually see a brand new podcast cover in your podcast app in the next two weeks when we release our first episode under this new format.

00:12:38.180 So keep an eye out for a new podcast cover, a design.

00:12:42.780 It's going to be different colors and probably won't even have my picture on it.

00:12:47.240 It'll just say real Christianity.

00:12:49.940 Third, the show is going to be built on questions from listeners.

00:12:55.000 And so each week I'm going to answer one important question about theology and the church.

00:13:02.080 And, um, you know, these are going to be important questions, vital questions.

00:13:07.760 And so I get lots and lots of questions.

00:13:11.020 If I ask for questions, I'll get thousands of questions.

00:13:13.680 So the cool thing about this is that we get some really good questions without even asking

00:13:18.100 for questions.

00:13:18.760 Yes.

00:13:19.400 So we're going to have some good questions.

00:13:21.460 And yeah, and those, those questions have been a blessing to us.

00:13:23.520 they've allowed us to create content based off of those questions, but there's just no way we can

00:13:29.060 answer all of them. Yeah. I think about like the Ask Pastor John podcast from Desiring God.

00:13:33.700 That's what he does. He just answers a question and he's like, God, I don't know, episode 900

00:13:37.680 or something like that, or 500 or something. So the other thing, which is still in the third

00:13:44.160 point here, is that we plan to keep each episode shorter. A lot of our episodes have gone to like

00:13:49.660 30, 40 minutes, we're going to have these episodes aimed to be 15 minutes long. Now,

00:13:54.560 some of them will be up to 20, but they will never be more than 20 minutes and they'll be never less

00:13:59.160 than 10. And the reason is that's where most people stop in the statistics anyways, because

00:14:06.140 they have a 15 to 20 minute drive to work and they might finish it on the way back. But it's

00:14:10.440 really nice to be able to finish an episode in one sitting. And so we want to aim to help you

00:14:14.640 guys, hey, here's a 15 to 20-minute deep end of the pool theological encouragement for the day.

00:14:23.280 And those are going to continue to come out on Wednesdays. Number four, we're not going to be

00:14:29.140 doing video any longer. And there's a variety of reasons for this, but one of them, just to be

00:14:35.680 honest, is that we live on a farm. And it is a ton of work to get it uploaded here, especially if

00:14:43.600 we're filming in 4k because we don't have great internet we don't have great internet and it's

00:14:48.820 like the old it's not a money thing best internet you can get out here and it's not great yeah it's

00:14:53.340 really really slow and so uh we have to like drive the the cards into town and drop them off to like

00:14:59.900 our editor it's it's just been hard to do that and so um but we will be uploading the videos still

00:15:06.620 to youtube uh it's just going to be an audio format and you can get that at our relearn.org

00:15:12.040 to YouTube. We've now changed our YouTube account to be relearn.org instead of Dale and Veronica

00:15:17.440 Partridge. And this, again, it's going to not just speed up the process in uploading, but speed up

00:15:23.060 the process in filming, like getting rid of that. And then editing is way easier. So this saves the

00:15:28.020 ministry a little bit of money and it also speeds up the process and makes it more manageable.

00:15:34.240 Manageable. Yeah. Good word. And then lastly, after this episode, we're actually going to take

00:15:40.800 two weeks off. So for two Wednesdays after this, you're not going to see a Real Christianity 0.76

00:15:48.300 podcast released. We're going to, between that time, we're going to record, try to do like four

00:15:54.900 to eight episodes back to back there. We're going to record a new introduction and a shorter

00:16:01.160 introduction because I know a lot of you who are regular listeners are going, oh my gosh,

00:16:05.160 I have to listen to the first minute of your introduction every week. I've heard it so many

00:16:08.580 No, you don't. You just skip 30 seconds.

00:16:10.280 I'm sure that's what everybody probably does.

00:16:11.660 That's what I do to regular podcasts I listen to.

00:16:14.160 So we're going to try to do a really quick, easy introduction.

00:16:16.760 Dive right in type thing?

00:16:18.400 Type show, yeah.

00:16:19.340 And so, and a new outro and new music and such.

00:16:22.400 So those are the five things that are going to change.

00:16:24.480 Yeah, and so we also wanted to share a quick update on our ministry.

00:16:28.380 The new relearnchurch.org website is almost done,

00:16:31.460 which will be a wonderful resource of content

00:16:33.980 for those interested in exploring Biblical House Church.

00:16:37.100 Yeah, and Veronica just said it out of sheer memory,

00:16:40.060 but it's relearn.org.

00:16:41.940 What did I say?

00:16:42.480 You said relearn church.

00:16:43.420 Oh, sorry.

00:16:44.260 Yeah.

00:16:44.860 So we've decided to change the name to relearn.org.

00:16:50.760 One is that we got that domain,

00:16:52.160 which was like a long process to get.

00:16:54.800 But two, a lot of people thought we were a church.

00:16:57.980 Yeah.

00:16:58.440 And so we don't want to get confused with the church.

00:16:59.980 We're a church planting.

00:17:01.060 We're a house church planting ministry.

00:17:03.520 relearn.org.

00:17:04.640 relearn.org, yeah.

00:17:05.500 So that site's going to be done in a couple weeks, and so we hope that it'll kind of line up with when we release the podcast, but that's big news.

00:17:13.300 And stjustins.org is another part of our ministry.

00:17:16.340 It's a companion ministry to relearn.org.

00:17:18.740 If relearn.org is the website where you explore and learn and get introduced to biblical house church, then St. Justin's is the application of that journey.

00:17:30.540 It's, oh, now I've learned, now I want to do something about it.

00:17:33.880 And so St. Justin's, it's stjustins.org, and that's our online house church planting school.

00:17:42.460 And we have a limited number of spots available for the first year, and we have several men actually enrolled already in the program.

00:17:49.960 But if you're interested in exploring formal church and pastoral training, we are putting together a really beautiful faculty of men and a great group of advisors, of theological advisors.

00:18:04.860 We have several of them locked in now, and we're still having discussions with a few more.

00:18:10.560 Go ahead and visit stjustins.org and just request more information, and we would start the process of talking to you about that.

00:18:19.960 Okay. And lastly, um, we just want to thank each and every single one of you guys who has

00:18:25.800 faithfully listened to the show. Um, the Lord has used this podcast to accomplish some of the most

00:18:31.360 incredible, amazing things that we've heard, at least testimonial wise. Um, we've heard stories

00:18:36.340 of people coming to faith through the podcast, which is a huge, huge win. Um, we've heard of

00:18:41.980 men returning home from adultery because of something that they listened to during a particular

00:18:46.040 episode. Um, we've also heard of couples who have decided to have more kids or people who were set

00:18:51.480 free from pornography. Um, hundreds of Christians who've decided to commit to reading the entire

00:18:58.200 Bible, um, divorces that were canceled. Um, and people who decided to be baptized relationships

00:19:05.260 that were restored, people who started Bible studies and just the stories just go on and on

00:19:10.880 and on. So Dale and I just want to say thank you so much. Um, we're humbled by every time we hear

00:19:16.820 one of these incredible testimonies, it's very humbling. Um, but all glory to God. We are

00:19:22.080 grateful that, um, he allowed us to do this for a season. Um, so we just want to say thanks.

00:19:27.040 Yeah. It's the, we, we have all these stories from the reviews and when you, when you read

00:19:33.440 through the reviews, it's like, they'll make you cry. I mean, they're just incredible how the Lord

00:19:38.620 has used a podcast of all things, us sitting in our studio, recording these things, and

00:19:46.840 he just uses them for his kingdom. And so praise God. And we just wanted to thank you guys for

00:19:53.980 just being faithful and allowing us to serve you guys in this ministry.

00:19:58.260 The last thing I want to say before we close out is that all of this, everything that we've done,

00:20:03.600 everything that the Lord's done through this podcast, all that it's accomplished spiritually,

00:20:07.380 uh all that it's accomplished as an as a podcast itself it was only made possible because of

00:20:14.380 people's faithful financial support um if you don't know the the show is a hundred percent

00:20:21.980 listener supported and so all of our expenses the camera equipment the microphones like

00:20:27.240 i just had to buy new microphones for the next show the way we're adjusting and getting better

00:20:32.940 microphones and, you know, it was $700 to do. Yeah. Paying the editor, paying, you know, paying

00:20:38.860 the, uh, uh, for just all the, um, equipment and the lights and the study time that it takes for

00:20:46.460 me. I, you know, on a, on a general episode, I'll sometimes spend two to 10 hours, uh, studying for

00:20:54.280 a particular episode and, uh, every single expense is covered by the donations of those who tune in

00:21:02.180 each week. And so the Lord is using your donations and allowing us to produce more resources

00:21:09.740 for the kingdom of God. And so for those who are new and have not made a donation to support the

00:21:17.600 ministry, would you guys consider praying what the Lord would have you do? We promise that we

00:21:23.400 will steward every single dollar with integrity and care. And if the Lord leads you to do so,

00:21:29.380 you can make a donation at relearnchurch.org forward slash donate. We're still on that

00:21:34.760 domain, relearnchurch.org forward slash donate. So thank you guys for joining us for this important

00:21:41.780 update. And I will see you guys on the next episode in the new format on June 24th. Take care.

00:21:49.880 See you guys.

00:21:52.000 Thank you for joining us on this episode of Real Christianity.

00:21:55.220 Real Christianity is an audio ministry of relearnchurch.org.

00:21:59.700 If you'd like more information on how to live out a biblical life, relearnchurch.org hosts a variety of articles, podcasts, sermons, and videos to support your journey.

00:22:09.860 Real Christianity is a 100% listener-supported ministry, and if you'd like to support our efforts, simply click the Donate tab at relearnchurch.org.

00:22:18.180 You can also connect with both Veronica and I on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter for daily lessons and Bible teachings.

00:22:25.220 Thank you for being with us today.

00:22:27.000 We hope to see you next Wednesday for another episode of Real Christianity.

Dale Partridge - June 03, 2020

Real Christianity #100： The Future of Real Christianity

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