Latest / Harvest After Sunday / New Season Intro: Vision, Feedback & What’s Ahead
Transcript
- Harvest Media: Welcome back to the Harvest After Sunday podcast. I'm Natalie and I'm your host and I'm here with Stefan, pastor of preaching and teaching. And we're really excited to be sitting down together again after a short summer break. Tell us about your summer. The summer was good. it was nice to to get a break from just the busyness of life with two kids and school and all the things and As I think everyone in the valley understands, the the summer is the time to get out of this place. Get out of here, absolutely. A little bit. And so we took a few trips to cooler, beautiful places where we were just able to spend time together as a family. Good. And I always step out of the pulpit in July to give other guys opportunities to to preach and for our church to hear from other voices and I think there's a ton of value in that. but always by the end of July I am I'm like rabidly eager to get back, which I think is a good thing 'cause I love preaching and I love our church. Yeah, it's so great to kind of rest, reset, reflect. It's been nice to get away with family. We did the same thing, go to cooler climates, go up to the mountains. But but we're back at it and we're kicking off a new season of the podcast too. And it was a great time for us to also rest from recording weekly, but also to reflect. We've had some great conversations. and you know, they the podcast was a new endeavor for for us and for our church this year. We kicked it off at the beginning of the year, and it was really exciting to see kind of how that initial season of episodes unfolded. And we've heard some great feedback from our church family that's been encouraging. And but I've appreciated our conversations this summer about, you know, let's talk again. About what is the purpose of the podcast? And are we hitting that mark? And is it landing with our church family and helping with the discipleship of our church family and what's ahead? What do we do we want to make changes and adjustments moving forward? And so we kind of wanted to invite everybody into that conversation and those updates. And so why don't you start off by just reminding us, you know, when we started the podcast, what was the main goal for what we wanted to present here? Yeah, the the main goal of this podcast was not to go viral. it was not to it was not to get a sponsor. Yeah. And neither of those things have happened. So great. We checked. We're on track. We we did not set out to do those things. We did not do those things. Yes. Our goal was for our church to be continually built up in ongoing discipleship and to use this as just another avenue for the discipleship of our church. And In talking about various topics, in bringing some guests on, in digging deeper into sermons, the the express intent of all of those was let's all be pursuing thinking biblically and learning more and more how to apply biblical truth to our lives, how to relate to one another according to that biblical truth as it's applied to our lives. Like those are just the normal everyday realities. Of discipleship, and the truth is that we need one another to be able to do that well. And we live in a time where technology is at our disposal. And while there are some perils and pitfalls to the use of technology or the overuse of technology, it is a tool that we have that we live in a time where we can use this tool to get more mileage out of the things that we that we're teaching at the church, that we're talking So that throughout the week we can all be built up. And I think that that the the first iteration, the first season of of the After Sunday podcast was successful in that. I mean I I think that that we were able to talk about a lot of really helpful things and our people benefited from it. And so we're not gonna try to change the the goal of it. That's gonna still be the goal of it. but we also recognize that there's probably even more. Ways that we can do that. Yeah, it's been exciting to talk about that and brainstorm together ways that we can continue to build upon what we've already begun to establish here. And I think one thing that I've just really loved is the conversational nature of us sitting down. And hopefully people can sense that and appreciate it and it's helpful to people. But like you said, you know, the goal is discipleship and we want to bring Bring a balance to that. And maybe people even notice in our dynamic and even the way we introduce ourselves, you know, you're our pastor of preaching and teaching, and you're going to teach us the truths of God's word. And I was so honored to be invited to be a part of the podcast to kind of represent the congregation. And I thought for years, you know, I have a lot of questions. I like to dialogue and and talk things out and talk about real life practical application. Okay. That's the truth. What does that mean for us in our daily living? And there's lots of ways we can go about that. And certainly that's the intent of things like small groups and men's or women's Bible studies to dig into the truth of God's word together and then to talk about practical application, even in counseling and one-on-one discipleship. And this is just one more avenue to kind of have those conversations. And I've left sermons over the years or been presented with kind of cultural. Or topical things that I I have more questions about and I don't always know where to go. And so it was exciting to be invited to be a part of this and get the opportunity each week to sit down with you. And so hopefully we can continue to kind of hone that balance and invite people in, like you said, just another opportunity to be living life together and be faithfully applying the truths of God's word in our lives. as we think about more questions we have from a sermon or a cultural topic that arises that we can hash out here. Totally. What's something that you've really loved about the podcast that you feel like maybe wouldn't have if we wouldn't be doing this? Well I think that the what I've enjoyed most is the coming at things from an angle that maybe I was I wasn't thinking about in the sermon prep. You know, in in sermon preparation, you you're trying to think about all the different people in the congregation and making sure that you're not continually neglecting a certain demographic or a certain phase of life or a certain situation. while every sermon can't talk to every group of people in every situation. If over the course of six to eight weeks there's one group or one dynamic that you're never talking about, then then that can that reveals a a hole in your applicational awareness in how you're thinking about sermon preparation. And what has been really h enjoyable for me is as we talk about different topics or as we dig deeper in a sermon You you sitting in the seat that is that is essentially representing our church family is is to ask the questions that the people in our church are asking and to anticipate the the person who might be wondering, okay, so what does this mean for me? And so I actually found in in the recording of the podcast that it was actually helping me to expand even how I thought about sermon prep. Yeah. And even how I thought about in in interacting with a person in counseling or in just conversation to to be able to think, okay, what what maybe what what would Natalie ask? Yeah. In a podcast episode that that would actually help in this situation. you know that was an unintended benefit, but it was certainly a a benefit. And and I I enjoyed it. I also as just a a teacher of people, not just by vocation, but also because I just genuinely love it. Any time that that I'm able to to talk about a topic that that I think is helpful for our people to think about, it's life giving for me. I think for some people recording a podcast is like, okay, man, I gotta spend a lot of time prepping for this. And And I I think about it a lot and I I'm burdened by it and and at least for me, I can only speak for myself, but I always love walking in this room and sitting down and talking. Like it's I I kinda walk out like, all right, I feel alive. Yeah. 'Cause we got to talk about truth and and I just think that's great. Totally. It's so energizing for me as well. And I'm even more energized, like looking ahead to this next kind of fall season because of the the the things that we've brainstormed and kind of explored and some episodes like we maybe have already recorded exploring some new formats that I think are just really refining and educational but also engaging and I'm excited for our church family we we just wanted to to hop on and tell people that that we're excited to be back and that weekly podcast will be coming out again now that we're entering this fall season. And it It will be similar to what we had done in the previous months, but we do have some exciting adjustments coming. Yeah. and some formats for some different kinds of episodes and topics. And then we also wanted to invite feedback from our church family. That was one thing we talked about in order to make sure that this is something that is benefiting our church body. you know, I have one way of thinking and I have questions and topics that are important to me, and we can we can flesh those out here. But we thought it would be helpful to provide an avenue to hear more from our church family about what will actually be beneficial for them. And so there will be, if you go to the description of this podcast on whatever platform you're listening on, there will be a link that to a form where you can do that and give some feedback and just a way to invite people to participate in this process and in these conversations and make sure that the topics and content that we're diving into. Here is helpful and beneficial and sanctifying for our church family. So what I find is everybody has questions. And the reason that I know that everybody has questions is because anywhere I go where people from our church family are there, almost invariably someone walks up to me and says, Could I ask you a question real quick? and I I don't mind that at all. I actually I am really grateful that that people feel comfortable enough to come up to me and ask me and I will absolutely give you the time to answer your question carefully and honestly and as completely as I can so that you walk away saying, Okay, I feel like I got an answer that's actually helpful to my question. Yeah. But I also recognize Some people are not comfortable doing that. Yeah. They don't want to be a bother, which it's not a bother, but they feel like it would be. they're scared, Yeah. All kinds of reasons. Sure. they're just not the kind of person who's ever gonna do that. Mm-hmm. But if they had a way to submit a question, yeah. Where they just have to type it into a a website or a forum or something, like, okay, I can do that. So I think that using this podcast as a as an avenue to be able to answer some of those questions is just a great opportunity. So for anyone listening, don't feel like it's a bother to submit a question because it's not. That's why we want to solicit this kind of feedback is so that we can hear the questions that are out there. Will we be able to answer every question that comes in? Probably not, depending on how many come in. Yeah. How many times do we end an episode and stop recording and I say, I have so many questions. So we have limited time in here. But I think it will be helpful to hear from people. Yeah, and it also helps us to know are the topics that we're talking about actually things that that are hitting the felt needs of the people who are listening. We if this is for discipleship, yeah, then it needs to it needs to be touching on felt needs of the listeners, not just the things that we think they need to hear. Some of the things we think that listeners need to hear, they do need to hear. but that felt need piece is really important. And so I think the only instruction I would give on submitting any questions is make sure that this the question that you submit on its own is clear enough that we know what you're asking. Right. sometimes sometimes because you know what you're asking and you wanna be concise, you don't wanna write a whole paragraph, you'll be a little too concise. To where in the reading of the question, the person reading it ha kind of says, I don't think I know what they're asking. Sure. and so it's just helpful for us if you read the question and say, on its own merit is this question clear in what it is asking? And that's just gonna help us a ton. Yeah. To be able to to answer it well. Yeah, that's really good. Otherwise we could be off to the races and and not r hit the mark of what they were really asking. or because we're unsure of what they're really asking, have to skip. over that question. So I'm I'm really excited about this piece of it and inviting more feedback from our church family. That is so my heart is to make sure that we are encouraging and edifying our church family. And it's just us sitting back here in this room sometimes. And so it's hard to know how it's really landing and if it's helpful to people and We are excited to be incorporating that as we move forward this season. So we will have more episodes out soon. but thanks for joining us today for the Harvest After Sunday podcast, where we help you grow into the image of Christ by applying the truths of his word for his mission. We'll see you Sunday.