Latest / 4-Freedom Podcast / 175. Summer Break & Updates

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175. Summer Break & Updates · 4-Freedom Podcast

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I found my freedom in you. I found a toy I can't lose, and
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thank God it's true. You wrapped your arms around me
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and heaven broke through. From the moment she found me.
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I found. Welcome to the Four Freedom
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Podcast. This podcast exists to bring the
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freedom of the gospel for everyday Christians with
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everyday issues. Now here are your hosts, James
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Seyfried and Brett Martin. Welcome back to the Four Freedom
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Podcast episode 175, Brett. It has been a long journey.
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It's been a fun journey. 175 episodes in.
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And this is our summer break episode.
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It's also our anniversary episode.
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And so five years ago on this coming Saturday, June or this
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coming Sunday, June 8th will be our fifth official year of
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having the podcast. John started this podcast many
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years ago, and we'll go through some of those details here in
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just a little bit. But man, it's been been fun.
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It's been a good journey. Excited about the future of the
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journey, excited about what the Lord has allowed us to do and
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the people we've been able to talk to.
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A great interview last week with Rebecca and some others that
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we're going to talk about here in a minute.
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But Brett, how are things going? Are you excited about being in
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Dallas in just a couple of days? Oh yes, I'm pretty excited.
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I almost got my bags packed. Now we're looking forward to it.
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Five years is quite an accomplishment.
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You and you and John have a have a big legacy here in the the
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podcast and what y'all put in it.
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The hours of study and research that have went in to y'all's
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episodes. It's just unreal.
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Especially the minds that you 2 have for counseling and the
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heart you have for it. I know that when I was a
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listener, I got a lot out of the episodes.
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Counseling and things like that really helped me a lot.
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And when I was going to taking my counseling courses through
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for seminary, John was the one who helped me.
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I had called him and had some questions about some things and
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he was able to give me some guidance.
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And so I'm just thankful to be here part of the podcast, and
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I'm looking forward to Dallas coming up.
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Sound like you're getting a little chugged up there, Brett,
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a little a little excited about what's going on, man, It's
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awesome. Dallas is is going to be great,
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man. If you are in the area, please
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reach out to us. Please let us know.
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We're going to have a couple of meetups couple of different
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times. We're going to be meeting at the
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house where we've got also a couple of places inside of
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Dallas, the the arena there, the K Hutchins Convention Center,
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but it's also a couple places around that several people have
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said, hey, this is a good place to go.
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And so we've got a couple of those lined up.
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And so we'd love to meet you. We'd love to get together with
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you and we'd love to share some stories and hang out and have
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just a wonderful time together. We're going to have our families
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there. I know my wife is excited about
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being there with Emily and it's been been a great long time
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coming. I can't believe it's already
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here, just a couple of days away.
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Being up here in McKinney with my sister's been great, and so
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we're excited about that. Brett, what else we got going
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on? Let's see here, we've got our
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Israel trip coming up, that's coming up 2026.
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We want to remind you about that the deadline for the
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registration and first payment is going to be at the end of
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June, beginning of July. So if you want to go, now is the
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time to jump on, get on top of that.
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We've got our a trip planned out where we're going to go every
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day. It's safe, ready to go.
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We want to invite you to come with us.
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We're going to have a great time.
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You're never going to regret going.
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And you know, James, in honor of us going to Dallas, which, you
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know, that is the home of Walker, Texas Ranger, I think it
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only be fitting we tell a couple of Chuck Norris jokes.
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What do you think? Let's do it, you know, Go ahead,
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jump on. When Chuck Norris enters a room,
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he doesn't turn the lights on. He turns the dark off.
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I love it, love it. What about Chuck Norris Counted
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to Infinity twice? Yes.
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Then of course, this is a classic.
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Chuck Norris doesn't do push ups, he pushes the earth down.
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Yeah, I love it. That's that's a classic there.
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It's been a while since I've heard some Chuck Norris jokes.
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I love them. That was a big thing when I was
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in college, man. Everything was Chuck Norris
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jokes and man, that's, that's classic.
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I love it, Brett. Man, I'll tell you what, I when
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we grew up walk watching Walker Texas Ranger.
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I mean it was on in my house every single solitary night.
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Just good family fun. Just seeing Chuck Norris
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Roundhouse kick some guys. I tried to watch the new Chuck
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Norris. It was trash.
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It was, yeah. Walker It was just complete
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garbage, Yeah. I watched a couple of episodes
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thinking that it wasn't like Walker, Texas Ranger, and then I
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realized it was and I'm like, this is so bad I just have to
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turn it off. Yeah, it was.
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It was awful, awful, awful. Yeah, it was can't.
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Replace Chuck. Yeah.
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Hey, one big adventure that we've been doing this last year
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we've started is our cigar company.
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And if you've been listening to us for any part of the time this
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last year, you'll know that we have been selling our cigars at
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1689 cigars.com and we're excited about what this
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opportunity has. Believe it or not, I say this
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often the the podcast doesn't come free.
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There are some some expenses that we incur as just website
6:13
and hosting fees and different things like that.
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And we don't ever ask for a GoFundMe or a Patreon account.
6:19
We just, we want to give you something tangible.
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We want to give you something great.
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These are high quality premium cigars and we we offer them on
6:28
that website. You can also find the link on
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our website at fourfreedompodcast.com and we'd
6:33
love for you to jump on there at if you stay tuned to the end of
6:36
the episode, we've got some exciting news for you and some
6:39
things that are going to help you out leading up to Father's
6:41
Day. And so hopefully you'll, you'll
6:43
stay tuned for that. But man, we are excited, Brett,
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we've got our, we, we, we're official now.
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We, we got our LLC for the cigar company and just excited about
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what the Lord's doing and how we're able to use this for his
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glory. And I'll be able to spread the
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word of what we're doing in different platforms in different
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areas. Amen.
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We got a lot of stuff coming up in that regard.
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And now we've got some announcements for the cigar
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company too. We don't want to.
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We've got some things coming down the Pike that we don't want
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to let the cat out of the bag just yet.
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We've got some plans and we're excited about it, but we're
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going to wait, going to be patient and abide our time, hold
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our tongue, wait for the right moment.
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And you know, and when we do release the info to you, you're
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going to be shocked. It's going to be shock and awe.
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Yeah, it's. Going to be great.
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We're partnered with some great people and we hope you can help
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us out in just a small way there.
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Well, Brett, we are five years into the podcast episodes.
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Over these years, we've accumulated almost 100,000
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downloads, which is and awesome feet me and John, when we
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started this, never thought we'd reach 1000 downloads and we've
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we've recorded 175 episodes. I came on, you know, about
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episode 20 or something and then you jumped on around episode 100
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when John stepped away. And so there's been some
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transition. There's been some ups and downs
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and we've been excited over what we've done over the last couple
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of years. I want to pull out just a couple
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of analytics because I can pull these up very quickly, but we
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have some some top performing episodes of all time.
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And I want to just share some of those just so people sort of can
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maybe reminisce a little bit on some things that we've done in
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the past. And so as I pull this up, Brett,
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let me, let me go to I, I just got it right here.
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So our very highest performing episode, this is an episode that
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we did. It was the very first Part 1,
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episode 22 of The King James Only ISM that we did.
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That came out in January 7th of 2021.
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And it is our highest performing episode by far by several 100
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listens overall #2 is our IFB modesty and Biblical modesty
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with Amy Miller. Amy, what a great interview that
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was with her. If you're listening, Amy, I'd
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love to have you come back on and talk through a couple of
9:25
other newer things. And then #3 our number three
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episode of all time, and this is sort of why we've started this
9:33
series back up again, was the 4th episode that came out, which
9:37
was the history of the IFB Part 1 with Dre, Frank Norris and his
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response to abuse at Hopewell Baptist Church there.
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And that was put out July 2nd of 2020.
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And so those those 3 episodes, very high performing episodes.
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Very #4 honorable mention here is Aren't you Just Bitter by
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Nathan Corvat? And that was interview #16 that
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John did with Nathan. Just an honorable mention there.
10:07
But yeah, we've had some great things and we've had some great
10:10
episodes going on. Excited about what's happening
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right now. Brett, what is your favorite
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episode of Let's Just Do This last season that we've been a
10:19
part of? Thinking back over this last
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season, one of my favorite episodes would have to be the
10:28
House Anderson episode that we just did kind of kick off her
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Footprints of Fundamentalism series really give me a chance.
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I've given my testimony about how's Anderson 4, but it really
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gave me a chance to to kind of dig into the college and bring
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some stuff up. And man, one of the reasons why
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I'm like that episode so much as we got so much feedback from it.
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We got so much positive feedback.
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And we got some negative feedback too, from people that
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weren't too happy that we were, you know, kicking over some
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trees. And so they're not happy about
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that. But mostly it was positive.
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It it opened up a big opened up a plethora of people that come
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out and say, Hey, I've got a story, I've got a story, I've
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got a story. You need to check out this
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college, you need to check out this this church.
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And so you know, it kind of led into our series.
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And so we are. That's one of my favorite
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episodes over the last season. Yeah, For me over the last
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season, I would have to say my favorite one that we've done so
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far. I did love our our our woke
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series. I know that it didn't get a lot
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of attention as far as downloads wise and it was something that
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we felt was was needed to be done as far as just talking
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through some issues in the church.
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But I would have to probably say that our interview with Joe
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Vanilla was just what AI thought.
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His story was great. I thought he had a great time
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just talking about his being cancelled in the IB and his his
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just vulnerability to be able to talk through some of those
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things. And I thought that was a great
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thing for him over this last season, which would have been
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back in August. We did that episode Freedom to
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start over where we talked about that song for a start over.
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Man, I, I steal that song. I played at least once a week,
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me and my kids will get in the car and we'll play and we'll
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just, man, we're hanging out, we're singing, we're worshiping.
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And that what a great song. Just to remind yourself that we
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don't have to be stuck where we're at and that we have this
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opportunity just to move forward, that God has taken care
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of all of our sins on the cross and and we can press forward to
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the prize that God has for us. Amen.
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Those are some great episodes. And yeah, Forza World War
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series, like you said, I absolutely loved it.
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I think that it was needed, like I said, didn't get a lot of
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attention, but it was something that needed to be said.
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And sometimes it's just OK to put some good content out there
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for reference. And you know, we need to be
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aware of the way the wind is blowing.
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But I'll tell you what I am looking forward to the future.
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We have got some plans when we come back from our summer break.
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It's going to be, you know, that song 105 days of summer vacation
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won't be that many days. But when we do come back from
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our summer break, we've got we're going to continue in the
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footprints of fundamentalism. We have got some interviews
13:37
lined up that you won't believe. I've, I've let the cat out, cat
13:42
out of the bag to a couple people blew their minds of who
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we've got coming on the podcast. And so we are really, real,
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really, really looking forward to what we have coming down the
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Pike. Yeah, absolutely, Brett.
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Well, I'm just going to highlight just a couple of
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things that we have ready for our fall lineup.
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We've going to, we're going to pick up and we jump back over
14:06
this summer. Just to let you know, over the
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summer, we'll be dropping a couple sermons by me and Brett
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like we normally do. We're going to do a live meet up
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in the convention hall with Marcus Merritt at his booth.
14:20
We're going to bring some portable microphones and we're
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going to record this episode right there.
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We're going to have the ambient noise of people running around,
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screaming, hollering, all the crazy stuff that goes on at the
14:30
convention with people running laps and people making motion.
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It's going to be awesome. We're going to record right
14:36
there in the middle of the hall and we're going to have a great
14:38
time with that. We're going to be dropping some
14:40
of those fun episodes over the summer just ad hoc where me and
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Brett are going to be together. We're going to talk a little bit
14:47
me and we we're trying to get our wives to come on the wives
14:50
episode. Again, we haven't had Emily on.
14:52
We've had my wife on and talk through some stuff and I'd like
14:55
for you guys to hear Brett and Emily story of how they came
14:58
through fundamentalism and how they work through leaving the
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IFBI. Think that's a it's a big thing
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that I get asked often as far as where couples come through and
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how we help husbands and wife walk through that.
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We'll begin picking up with our fundamental footprints.
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We're going to be talking about Clarence Sexton.
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We're going to be talking about Lester Roloff, Peter Ruckman,
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Lee Robertson, Tom Malone, Carl Hatch, the future of
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fundamentalism and some of the modern day characters.
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And then the camp meeting movement.
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We're going to begin with a guy by the name of Charles Finney
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and we'll talk through sort of the movement after Charles
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Finney leading up to Billy Graham, Billy Sunday and
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hopefully have a modern day Billy Sunday, Billy Graham be
15:45
able to talk with us. And so Ben, we're excited about
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that. Some interviews in there that I
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didn't quite hit all of them, but some interviews that we've
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got lined up with different people that are going to be
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really exciting. Amen.
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Looking forward to it. Yeah, Brett, we've got the
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convention that's going to be starting here soon.
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What are you most looking forward to with the convention?
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Let's see, here I am. Of course the preaching
16:12
conference is, is always a highlight of what we've got
16:18
going on. And then then of course, during
16:21
the convention, you've got the drama associated with, you know,
16:25
my, my local state convention is like boring compared to the
16:31
national one. There's plenty of drama to go
16:34
around. But I would have to say, you
16:36
know, next to that, it would have to be just the exhibition
16:40
hall. It's just like, I mean, for a
16:42
pastor, it's like a fat kid in a candy store.
16:45
You just go through, get all the free swag stuff we all get.
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I've still got pins. I've told y'all before.
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I still got pins I'm using from the last conference and just the
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time just to kind of switch off from the responsibilities that
17:00
we have in in churches and then just kind of focus on at what
17:07
we're doing at that moment. Try to grow, try to learn more
17:10
about the convention that we're in, get some good helps in the
17:15
exhibit hall. But I'm I'm looking forward to
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that exhibit hall. Absolutely, yeah.
17:19
One of the things that I say again, pastors Conference for me
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top #1 the thing that I'm going for number 2 is the the exhibit
17:28
hall. Man, I tell people all the time,
17:30
this is, it's like Halloween for Baptists.
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We're going through what can you give me for free?
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If you don't have anything free, you're dead to me.
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And I'm going to keep on walking because I don't want to buy
17:40
anything in the exhibit hall. I'm just there to see what you
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got, what resources you have, How can you help me?
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And so we, we walk through that lots of fun, lots of like good
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people laughing all the time and people giving things away.
17:52
I love it. And so we're excited about that.
17:55
And then, man, that my wife, she says the only fun part about the
17:58
convention is letting people make their motions and seeing
18:02
their motions get shot down. She said it's my favorite part
18:05
of it. I just get to sit there and
18:06
laugh when someone's motion gets caught out of order or called,
18:10
you know, not right. And all of a sudden they get up
18:13
and they got to defend their motion.
18:14
And it's, yeah, it's good to be fun.
18:17
There's a couple of things with the RLC going on this year that
18:20
are will be exciting and interesting to see what happens
18:23
and the revised law amendment they're talking about bringing
18:26
back up. So some other things that have
18:28
been going on. Excited about that.
18:30
And man, Brett, one of my favorite things about the
18:32
convention is just been able to get around people that I've made
18:35
friends with over the years, pastors from all over the
18:38
country that get together and faces that I know and recognize.
18:42
And we just get to hang out and have dinner and have lunch and
18:46
get to get to have great fellowship.
18:48
And so man, I am excited about that.
18:51
And then Brett, on my way home from the convention, we're
18:54
actually going to be stopping at John's house.
18:56
It's sort of almost a little over halfway back to North
19:00
Carolina. And so we'll stay at his house
19:02
Thursday and Friday night and then get back home Saturday.
19:06
And so spend a little bit of time with him and getting to
19:09
hang out, enjoy some some cigars for the meeting there.
19:14
And I'm going to be going up and, and meeting a couple guys
19:18
that we talked to on a group chat the menu were on.
19:20
So that's going to be an exciting.
19:22
Oh yeah, yeah. It's going to be great.
19:24
Really looking forward to it. And you know, so I'm right there
19:29
with you. Well, let's drop our exciting
19:31
news and we'll go ahead and wrap this episode up.
19:33
We are going to be launching a promo code for the month of June
19:37
and July, our summer months really leading up to Father's
19:40
Day. If you are looking for a
19:42
Father's Day gift to go to our website, our cigar website,
19:47
1689.com back slash for Freedom Cigars and what we're going to
19:51
leave, we're going to leave this promo code we'll have in the
19:54
show notes as well. It's going to be 5 the number
19:57
five years, 5YE ARS years for the #4 freedom FREEDOM, five
20:06
years for freedom. And that'll give you a 10% off
20:09
of anything on the website. We've got singles, we've got a
20:12
sampler pack, we've got 5 packs and we've got boxes of 20 and
20:17
your best deal is going to be that box of 20.
20:19
Will be your lowest discounted rate, plus you can get an
20:22
additional 10% off of that. And so we were hoping that you
20:27
will have to be able to give your father something nice, be
20:29
able to give him a quality gift, whether it's something from us
20:32
or something from someone else. But we'll be running that
20:35
through the middle of July. So June and the middle of July
20:40
will have that. And hopefully you can go and
20:42
take advantage of that and be able to support us in a great
20:46
way. Brett, any final thoughts from
20:48
you, my friend? I'm just looking forward to
20:50
getting back here recording with you.
20:53
You know, we have to take this summer break because as pastors,
20:57
you know, summer is just so busy for us between the convention
21:01
that we've got VBS, we've got other things going on there in
21:05
the summer. Lot of mission, sometimes a
21:07
mission trips, lot of things going on.
21:10
But I am going to look forward to getting back here in the
21:12
recording studio. It's just my office, not studio.
21:15
But regardless, I am looking forward to getting back here and
21:18
recording and I can't wait to do that.
21:21
And I can't wait to see y'all after the summer's over.
21:23
Absolutely Brett. My my month of June I will be at
21:27
home one week in the month of June.
21:30
The 1st 2 weeks of June I'll be in Dallas.
21:33
The second third week of June I'll be home and the 3rd and 4th
21:36
week of June is our kids camp. Last year our kids camp was
21:41
later this year because of dates, we moved it up and made
21:43
it sooner. And so for the entire month of
21:46
June, I will be home for about 5 days in my own bed.
21:50
And so not necessarily looking, I'm looking forward to it, but
21:53
I'm sort of looking ahead. Like man, as much as it's
21:56
summertime, I'm going to need a break from summer because of how
21:59
busy it's going to be. And so we, we just won't be able
22:03
to physically put episodes out. And so we try to record them as
22:06
close to our episodes we can just to keep you up to date on
22:09
pertinent information. And so we're excited about that.
22:12
Continue to reach out to us if you have any thoughts,
22:14
questions, comments, concerns, any other information you may
22:18
have. Our phone numbers are out there.
22:20
You can get a hold of us on direct message.
22:23
And thank you for supporting the show.
22:25
Thank you for these last five years.
22:27
It's been a wonderful time. And I, I do want to give one
22:30
shout out to the RFP network, the, the RFP for the work that
22:34
they've done and really paved the path for where we're at
22:38
today. And I know the network is no
22:40
longer in existence, but I thank JC for what he's doing, and I
22:45
thank him for his ability to do what he's doing over there with
22:48
the Cover and Fundamentals podcast.
22:50
And I want to just continue to shine light, share hope, and
22:56
offer freedom to those who are left in bondage through
22:59
Galatians 5/1 for freedom. Christ has set us free.
23:04
And I hope that you will continue to stay free and stay
23:07
in love with Jesus and everything we do.
23:09
Brett. Amen.
23:11
Love you my friend, and until next time, to God be the glory.
23:16
Great things he has done. Found my new name, found that
23:21
good grace, Found that healing. And the tears fell down my face
23:26
when I found my beginning has no ending.
23:30
From my second chance, from my best friend, from my
23:32
forgiveness, from my happiness. I've been singing ever since
23:41
about my freedom. Thanks for listening to the Four
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Freedom Podcast. If you enjoyed our content, do
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