Behind the Mic: Bob Thibodeau on Spreading the Gospel Online

Sean: 00:00:21

Sean Mize here with Bob Thibodeau. I tell you what, I am just so very excited to have you face to face. We haven't been face to face in a couple of months.

I am so excited to have you here, Bob.

Bob: 00:00:34

Yeah. And I'm so excited because you finally got a podcast after, like, two years of. Yeah, well, no. Oh, yeah, no, yeah.

Sean: 00:00:44

I'm glad.

Bob: 00:00:45

So glad. You finally just dove in. That's the only thing you can do. You just.

Just, you know, I went into one of them polar bear plunges a few years ago, and, you know, the only thing you do just run in, get it over with, and now you're there, you know.

Sean: 00:00:58

Yeah, now you're there and you get the.

Bob: 00:01:01

Took the plunge. You took the plunge. Amen. Welcome to podcasters World.

Sean: 00:01:08

Well, thank you so much. I'll tell you, I'm almost embarrassed. I really am.

You know, God's been on my back for the last six months to do these interviews regardless, outside of podcasts. Right. And. And, you know, I finally got into obedience last week, and it was so easy. And every.

Almost everybody, if not everybody, said, yes, it was so easy. And. But what. What's been interesting is seeing things last few days and today as I'm doing a stack of.

Of interviews all in the same day, seeing the Lord working behind the scenes in each of the conversations. And so it's not like, okay, God said, go do it. I'm on my own. I'm intimately a part of this great thing that he's doing.

And I know this stuff intellectually, but to be right inside of it, it's just beautiful. And you and I were talking a little bit before the show about some of the stuff that you're doing.

And I'm just blown away by what he's doing in you and through you. I want to open up with a question. This is kind of the question I'm wanting to ask everybody, and that is, you know, how do you. How do you see the.

On the online world and all the things that we're able to do, you know, these interviews, these podcasts, the radio, the a.m. all the stuff that you do, how does that fit into the Great Commission and really changing people's lives?

Bob: 00:02:38

Well, as Jesus said, take the gospel into all the earth. And, you know, thank God Al Gore invented the Internet and. And made that possible. Right?

Because, you know, I've used this several times in sermons and stuff when I was talking about evangelism, radio, and all that that we used to have.

And the point is 100 years ago, if I wanted to go, if I was led of the Lord to go preach in Africa, well, I had to raise the money, make sure I had the family taken care of or take them with me, go on a two or three week long ship journey over there, get off another couple of weeks to get into wherever it was I was called to go. And you just didn't go in and say, okay, we got one meeting and now I can go home. No, you spent all that time ever to get there.

Now you're going to be there for six months or a year, then pack up and come out. So you're gone two, three years. These missionaries were right, if not more.

And then, you know, thank God they invented the steamship where you go across there in a week or so and then airplanes where you can just fly over there and take care of business and stay a week and then come back, you know.

But now, you know, I get up Sunday mornings after my prayer time and bible study time, 9 o'clock, hit go and I'm preaching to 167 nations on the radio, Internet radio, when I get done, be blessed in all you do. Turn it off, go back out, get some coffee. My wife says, let's go to the grocery store.

Okay, you know, you know, that's the power of the Internet, you know, and people are getting ministered to because the word of God, you know, is flowing straight to them live simultaneously while we're preaching on the radio, they're hearing it, you know, wherever they're at. And, and you know, we get testimonies in about, you know, they listen to the broadcast. It was really moving.

Sometimes, you know, we got on the radio, you have other broadcasters as well, so, you know, and they hear the messages and it doesn't have to just be on the radio. Podcasting does the same thing. Except the difference between the podcast and a radio broadcast.

Radio's live, so when you're done, you're done where with the podcast, it's a recording. You can put it out in different formats and people can listen to. Some of our most listened to episodes are from like six months ago.

You know, I get the analytics on our, on our podcast and thousands and thousands of downloads from something that happened six months ago. You can't get that with live radio. But that's, that's what I love about podcasts. It's evergreen, it lives forever.

Sean: 00:05:25

That's just so powerful. I mean it really just blows me away. And I'll tell you the image that comes to mind and, and I, I thought of this last week, I think it was.

It was talking with somebody. You know, you're doing a great work, and I like to believe I'm doing a little bit of a great work.

And I just talked with Terry, and he's doing a good work, and Thomas is doing a good work. And, you know, God is touching probably not just a million. He's probably.

He's touching millions of people like you and me and these others to go out there and do this little thing that he's given us to do. And I might think my part's so small and your. Your part's pretty big, which is really cool. But so many of us, we have this small little part.

What God is doing in his infiniteness, in his amazing sovereignness, is he's bringing millions of us, not necessarily together, but one by one, we're going out there and touching a few lives.

Or you're touching somebody in Africa, or you're touching somebody in Ukraine, you're touching somewhere else, and you're getting these messages back, and so is another million people. God is doing such an amazing work behind the scenes that we can't even see. He's this master. He's. He's like the marionette.

And he's got millions of us that are willingly doing this, but we can only see what's in front of us. And he's just doing something amazing. And when I get to. To talk with you and so many of the others, I'm seeing it and I go, I don't even.

I didn't know these people last week. How many more millions of people is God doing this with?

And so we look at what you're doing right there, and you say all of these podcasts, and you know, here's the thing, Bob. You create a podcast today, and you have a message in mind, and you.

You have a person in mind, and it goes out there, and it helps somebody today, but six months from now, somebody that has a new problem that they didn't have six months ago when they heard you in the first place, they get to hear that. And God ordained. God orchestrated that.

You would say those words, and this person was going to get touched six months later, and you didn't have a clue. That blows my mind.

Bob: 00:07:38

Yeah. Yep. Exactly. Right. And. And that's the great thing about the word is it's timeless. You know, I mean, think about. Moses wrote his stuff 4,000 years ago.

We're still reading it today.

Sean: 00:07:51

Absolutely.

And then the words of Jesus, you know, he didn't have the Internet, but He traveled a lot and he spoke a lot and he had people that transcribed what he. We assume they transcribed it, they had great memories or something like that.

And we got the words that Jesus said and now we're able to put it on the airwaves and everybody in the, in the world be able to hear. So I'm really excited. You've got a couple of really cool things coming up that are really going to touch the world.

We were talking a little bit before the call, and one of those is 15 minutes a day. What do you call it?

Bob: 00:08:25

15 minutes a day, 15 minute walk through the Bible.

Sean: 00:08:29

Tell us about that, Bob.

Bob: 00:08:31

Well, you know, every year I kind of get a theme for what I'll be focusing on teaching on for the coming year. And starting about October, that's where I really start praying about that and seeing where the Lord leads and all that.

And, you know, this past year or so we've been working on the training programs for the, the, you know, helping people start their podcasts and things like that.

And I just wasn't feeling it to continue down that path again, you know, and because there's only so many steps you can teach on without repeating yourself over and over and over. And the Lord put on my heart, you know, we, we. After 14 years of running the radio station, I turned it over to somebody else.

So now I have a lot more time to focus, not so much on handling, you know, 16, 17 different broadcasters and their needs. But what does the Lord want me to do? And he said it's time to focus just on your ministry now.

And that is the mission statement of the ministry has always been get the word out. And so we've been doing that every Sunday. We got the live broadcast and all that. But how.

And I came across some software a couple weeks ago that gave me the answer to that prayer where it's an AI. It has like 20 different AI voices and stuff. And I've tested it several times already and it is great.

And it'll not only that, that it's got several different languages, it'll translate into their language. And the, from the reviews I read, the translations are pretty accurate.

You know, I mean, I, I can't speak fluent Korean, but I can get myself understood. Well, this is a lot better than that. Okay.

And you know, I, I can, I, when I was in the military, I, I told people I knew enough Spanish to get me in trouble, put it like that. And, and you know, same thing in Korean, but I can go ahead and drop my audio file in here.

And it will translate or it puts it in the text and then translates this text into whatever language we want. And after praying about it, we decide we're going to do Spanish because that's a very massively known and understood language as well as Urdu.

Now some people don't know Urdu is what's spoken in Pakistan and India. I did, I thought India had. India does have its own dialects, but India is also the largest English speaking country in the world.

I had a board, a board member that was from India and he explained that to me. He said when you know that because they were under colonial rule with Britain and it was a requirement, every person had to take English classes. So.

And India is so big for us, it'd be less. An example would be someone in Alaska doing business with someone in Florida.

There's like 143 different dialects that people speak so they can't communicate to one another. But because everybody's required to speak English when they do business deals, they deal it in English, you know, even though from India.

Sean: 00:11:48

Right.

Bob: 00:11:49

So the English, India is one of our largest listeners to the radio station because of that. But the point being Urdu, because of the Muslim nations right around there, Afghanistan, Pakistan, all that, they speak Urdu as well.

So I say okay, we'll use Urdu, English, Spanish, and then there's going to be one more. Haven't decide what's going to be. I'm praying about between Russia, Ukrainian, but something along those lines.

It might end up being Chinese, I don't know, whatever the Lord puts on my heart. But with the technology that has been developed, this is some amazing stuff that wasn't available when I started all this 14 years ago.

I can translate that and then put a 15 minute broadcast out with its own podcast feed that'll go into the nations and we're just going to do like a Vernon J. McGee type thing of reading through the Bible. At January 1st, I, I read the Bible through every all, you know, all the way through.

Every year like January 1st, I start again.

Well this time as I start, I'm just going to be recording it this time and with my own little commentary as we go, trying to explain things a little bit. The Bible according to Bob type thing. And you know, some days might be three or four verses, some days might be a whole chapter.

It depends on the length and the content and what I want to say about it. But I did some study, Verna J. McGee took him five years, five and a half years or something like that to do the complete Bible.

I don't know how long it's going to take me. Jesus might be back before this project's done, but I don't know. But that's what we're going to do. That starts January 1st.

So I'm excited about that because that gives me some teeth. Now back, you know, like I'm really sharing the Word, put it like that, because it is the Word.

And instead of just me preaching on a topic, we're just going to go through the Word and, and all that starts and it's a 15 minute daily walk through the Bible. And so I'll be putting some announcements together here soon to start blasting that out.

Sean: 00:13:58

Well, that's so exciting. That is, that's just, I mean, I'm just, I'm just leaning into this. God has me in a place of awe right now, just, just in awe of what he's. He's doing.

And you know, you're not going to be the only one.

God's going to be using many voices just like you combined with the technology to get His Word into places that 14 years ago you, you really could barely get them in. It's absolutely amazing to me what God is doing right now, but he's doing it through people.

Bob: 00:14:36

Amen.

Sean: 00:14:37

You know, he's doing, he always uses me, he always uses people. And I think that's the thing that so, so many times, you know, people think, well, God doesn't really need me, he has everybody else.

The truth of the matter is he needs every single one of us. And you're walking something amazing out. And you know, the thing is, I love the idea of just God's work, right?

Because, you know, especially for somebody on their way to work, for somebody that wants to hear it, for somebody that's an audio learner, you know, the truth of the matter is I got my, I don't always do this, but I brought my Bible in to work today, okay? My Bible here on the, on the table. But the truth of the matter is, Bob, I've been in here for four hours and few interviews and some other work.

I don't think I've opened the Bible right.

Bob: 00:15:21

I haven't opened it.

Sean: 00:15:22

So it's there, it's supposed to be used. I haven't opened it, but you might have the 15 minute, you know, piece and it's like, okay, it comes in every day at 10 o'clock.

I get to listen to it while I'm answering emails or something and then imagine if there's a million others that are able to do the same thing. Yeah, there's so much.

Bob: 00:15:42

And that's it. It's so it'll be short enough that it's not going to disrupt your day.

Like, like when I go watch, I have certain preaching shows that I watch every morning after my prayer time and stuff. I'll go out a cup of coffee and sit there, but I actually have to take time. Okay, I got 30 minutes before my first interview. That's not enough time.

Okay. Oh, I got an hour before. Okay, I can go watch this show now type thing. Right.

And so, you know, like you said, 15 minutes, you can sit there listening to it. You know, It'll be on YouTube as well. I'll have its own dedicated channel for that and, or playlist, whatever they call those things.

And you know, so it could be visual, you know, somebody wanted to watch it and all that. But yeah, audio is so cool because, you know, 80%, the statistics prove out. 80% of podcasts are listened to on while people are doing other stuff.

And something like 70% listen to the, the on the way to, in the car, you know, on their way to work, you know, 30. Average drive time of 35 minutes. A 30 minute podcast can be listened to on the way to work. You know, so it's.

The technology's there, the desire is there. We just need people to go do it.

Sean: 00:16:56

Yeah.

And, you know, for us as Christians to sit back and let the secular world use all those tools for business and for coaching and for health and all of those other. That's all fine and wonderful, you know, but it's, it's hard to get people into church. Right. Especially the unchurched. They're not in church.

There's, there's plenty of Christians that don't go to church. Whether they have church hurt, church hurt. It's too far to go. They have a job that operates during the time that church meets.

And there's so many people that have legitimate reasons not to go to church, and then they get to go to church with you or with somebody else. Right. You know, so just, it's just really, really interesting to me what, what God is doing right now and how he is multiplying the voices.

You know, I think it's so easy, Bob, sometimes to think, well, somebody else is already doing that. Why would I read the Bible in 15 minutes a day? Somebody else is probably doing it.

The truth of the matter is, one of the things that I've realized, and God has made this real to me lately, is that when he's enacting change, let's say in me, most of the time, that change doesn't come just by reading the Word or just by praying or just by following one pastor.

If I need change in my life, God is probably speaking to me from multiple voices, and I needed multiple voices for that to get through my thick skull. And if you took even one of those voices out, it wouldn't be the full message.

I think that sometimes we under understate or underrate the importance of our voice. Not because we want to be haughty or arrogant, but just that he created us. We are his workmanship, created in Christ to do works. He prepared for us.

Bob: 00:18:51

Amen.

Sean: 00:18:52

Well, if he created works for us, but we sit back and don't do them because somebody else looks like they're doing the same thing. We're not walking in what he gave us to do. So that's just what I love, is your obedience.

I know we had a couple other things we're going to talk about, about where you're at, but I want to send a kudos out. I'm going to send a kudos out. I want to say there's something I really admire about you, Bob.

You know, obviously, over the years, you've done over a thousand podcast interviews, and you're just such a, you know, you, you, you broke ground when it came to Christian podcasting back at the beginning. And all of that is. Is absolutely amazing.

I tell you what to me is turning the knob, it's turning the dial up, is now that you've done that and you've built all those relationships. And of course, I've seen you behind the scenes.

You've seen me behind the scenes, and we've seen Thomas, we've seen others, we've seen all so many of the others. Right.

Bob: 00:19:50

Amen.

Sean: 00:19:51

You're an amazing connector because of the fact that you have this seat where you. Where you know a thousand people and you know where their heart is and you know who's helping who and who's helping over here.

And you're in that amazing seat where you're able to connect Christians that wouldn't otherwise be able to be connected. So God knows everybody's needs and God would put things together.

Of course, God can always make something happen, whether it's, you know, you run into them in the grocery store or God just miraculously says, call somebody. You make it so much easier. You're like a messenger of God right here on Earth. Being able to connect these people. That's beautiful to me.

Any thoughts on that, Bob?

Bob: 00:20:35

Well, that's the reason and the, the theory, I guess you could say, Behind Faith Casters, faithcaster.org is to connect people looking to do interviews with podcasters looking for guests or podcasts looking for guests with people looking to do interviews in the Christian faith. And, you know, that, that was the whole concept behind it because I kept getting asked, you know, can you introduce me to somebody?

And you know, all this stuff. And you know, I said, tell you what, why don't we just make one central place a hub and people can join it.

We'll blast out a newsletter every couple of weeks or so and, and feature a couple of people on there. And, and by doing that, it generates. It's not expensive. I think it's 17amonth or something, $15 a month.

But you know, that generate a little bit of income for the ministry. But at the same time, like I said, it's creating those connections. And, you know, connections can go beyond just an interview.

I mean, it can, you know, a connection could end up as a business partner or, you know, I mean, so, I mean, only God knows how those connections will end up growing and, but, you know, he dropped that in my heart about a year ago, and it's been up now and, and running and it's, it's effective. I keep getting told over and over again, man, that was a great, thank you for that connection type thing.

And I just tell people, tell your, tell your buddies, let them join too.

Sean: 00:21:58

Yeah, well, I mean, I can tell you this.

I mean, I'll be one of, you know, I'll be one of those, you know, I've been a member of it for a number of months now, and I just literally pulled the trigger last week. And I think I've connected with seven or nine people just through that. We have a common connection, which is you.

So, you know, we have, there's a common trust, there's a common knowing. You get on, you get on the phone, you get on Zoom and you talk with them. And it's like, my goodness, you're.

You're a thousand miles away, but you're doing a similar work for Jesus that, that Bob's doing, that I'm doing. And so it's, it's really been a blessing to me to be able to be a part of it. It's, it's been a blessing to me to kind of see it rolling out.

And so I'll just put a shout out there.

Anybody that's thinking about joining Faith Casters, I mean, all you got to do is spent is talk to people and it be well worth the investment, because it's a stupid, silly little, silly little investment. How else, Bob? How else are. Is God using you to take his word to the people of the earth?

Bob: 00:23:02

Well, like I said, we got the podcast, of course, the radio station. I still got up, my broadcast is on the radio station.

And, you know, by helping other people create their podcast, it's, you know, they're delivering their messages out there. And, you know, I. Someone can come to me and say, you know, I want. I have a tire store and I want to have a podcast.

I'm like, well, okay, you know, I can help you get it started. But typically the people who are reaching out to me are other believers just because of the. The niche I'm in. Right.

And by doing that, I'm just multiplying my efforts and getting the work, you know, I mean, is there. They're being led of the Lord to create a pocket like you create a podcast to help get the word out into the earth as I. Well, how do I do that?

Well, here you go. These are, you know, here's the checklist. If you start at check number one, work your way through to the bottom, do them all in order.

When you get to bottom, you got a published podcast. I mean, it's that simple. And, you know, and now we have another voice out into the earth.

And, and that's, that's my calling is just to help people accomplish their dream of starting a podcast. And, you know, at one point in time, I was trying to do one on one. You know, that's kind of how it started. You know, how can I do?

Well, here, here you go and I'll help you. And you're the one who, you know, because I was just doing it for free. Oh, here, here you go. That's a lot of work.

Sean: 00:24:33

Yeah, Yeah.

Bob: 00:24:34

I was like, Don' because the reason is they'll take advantage of it. Really? That's what it is.

Sean: 00:24:42

Yeah. You know, yeah.

Bob: 00:24:43

And I end up doing all the work and then they get the finished product and, you know what I get for it? Nothing, you know, but other than knowing I helped them.

But, you know, but the one on one, I started growing so fast and so much that I, I couldn't do one on ones anymore. So then went to the group model and that worked well until it. I actually grew where I couldn't even commit to doing the group things anymore. So.

And then we say, well, tell you what, you know, it's the same steps. I'll just create the videos and then you just follow video One through the end and you got it when you're done.

And if you have a question or there's an issue, email me. We can jump on a call and work through it. And that seems to be working the best because they can do it at their own pace.

I don't, doesn't have to be at 2pm on Tuesdays every week or anything like that. They could do it at, you know, come home from work at 9:00 at night, so I don't feel like going to bed. Let me hit another video here.

Yeah, whatever their schedule allows, that's what they got and that seems to be working well. So, you know, the Lord's blessed me with being able to do that, that helps other people. I said is, is May.

Back in Jesus's days, they were, you know, making disciples. What is the purpose of making a disciple have someone else to take the word out? Well, that's kind of what I'm doing. Disciple.

My, my calling Business Ed. Podcast discipleship. I don't know but. And just teaching people how to use the, the podcast to get the word out because the. There's never enough.

We always need more voices.

Sean: 00:26:23

Curious question for you, Bob. I wonder if the listeners would be, would lean into this. Of this.

You, you talk with a lot of Christians that are connected authors and speakers and podcasters, radio broadcasters and wannabes, all, all kinds of different people. And, and they, they want to do things online. They want to get the word out. They want to get the word out to a thousand people instead of 10 people.

What do you, what do you see as the biggest challenge that these. Christ.

Bob: 00:26:54

The biggest one is will I matter? You know, I'm just one voice. I don't have a following. You know, I don't have a million followers. I'm not going to get a million downloads.

But will it really matter? And the answer is yes. You know, I mean, if I use this sometimes when I'm preaching.

There was an old, back in the turn of the century, back out in Missouri area guy was, he was an evangelist and he traveled town to town pulling his wagon. He had a big tent he'd set up on the edge of town. Next town he'd get into, he'd set it up and, and hang up a sign, you know, tent revival.

And he'd be there for a week preaching his heart out. And then he pack it up, go to the next town. That was his calling. And he came into this one town, set it all up.

You know, people packed it out, you know, because it was something different than their normal routine. So they came out to it and he preached his heart out. All week long nobody came forward to receive Jesus as their savior.

And in his journal he was writing, you know, this is a waste of my time. You know, I'm getting discouraged. The last night of the revival one person came forward, a little seven year old boy.

Now in the natural, you look at it like, man, this was a total waste of my time. And he was writing it in his journal and he said the only all week I preached my heart out. Nobody came forward till the last night of the meeting.

And just a seven year old boy named Billy Sunday came forward to accept Christ as a savior. And Billy Sunday went on to become a famous, famous evangelist, winning millions of people to the Lord.

But if it wasn't button for that one no name preacher who went and preached at Billy Sunday's town when it didn't look like it even mattered, none of it would have happened. So that's why it does not matter if you've got a million followers or two followers.

But you put it out there, especially on the Internet where it, you know, a podcast, it'll, it's not like a live broadcast and it's done, it'll never be listened to again. A podcast will always be out there and somebody, somewhere, someday.

Well, this looks interesting and I click it and it just resonates with them like that's what I need. And you don't know who is going to take it and run with it and win a million people just because you took the time to do a 15 minute podcast.

So that's what I, that's, that's what keeps me going.

Sean: 00:29:49

That, that's awesome that you feel like that's the challenge. They, they've got a skill, they've got the ability. But it's not even saying, look, I don't have the technical ability or I don't know the people.

It's the inside doubt that does what I do matter.

Bob: 00:30:05

Yeah, that's, that's really because you know, it does take time to do it. You know, it well.

Sean: 00:30:12

Yeah. Oh my goodness. Yeah, yeah.

Bob: 00:30:14

Look, look, Bob, you know, some people are so busy nowadays, you know that like ah, do I have time to do this or not?

You know, and that's why some of the podcasting platforms, I'll, I'm not even going to call their names, but you just record it on the phone, you know, and, and, and it goes out there. It's not a great platform, but guess what, it's a voice. And they're doing it.

Sean: 00:30:41

You know, I. I can. I can sort of understand their pain when they say, does what I do even matter? You know, and I'm not going to have any false modesty here, okay?

I know I've impacted thousands of people. Just like, you know, you've impacted thousands. I know I've impacted thousands of people. But can I tell you something, Bob?

Sunday night, I was on my knees crying at an altar because I feel like I'm not touching people and. And floods through my mind, right? I mean, I've gotten the testimonials, I've gotten the emails.

I intellectually, I know I've touched an awful lot of people, and yet I still feel insecure that my voice matters. And so I can only imagine what somebody feels like when they're one person. They don't have any followers.

All they have is their Bible, and they go, do I matter? And I. That. You know, thank you for sharing that with me, because that's a whole different perspective. So. So I'm just curious here.

So I had somebody that wrote me an email, and I won't give any more details about it because I just. Out of privacy, you know how that is. But, you know, they. They wrote me an email and they said, you know, I feel like there's a need.

They didn't use the word in the market, but, like, for a particular people group, there's a real need. Nobody's meeting the need. And these people are. Are disenfranchised.

And the only thing, the thing that went through my mind was, oh, my goodness, you could re. Enfranchise them all by having your own show. You could have your own show for those people. It could reach the house.

It could be a community, it could be a podcast, whatever. I mean, just the thought is that. That you could take that.

And so when I tie that together with what you're saying, this is what goes through my mind with what you're saying, is that people feel like their voice is not heard. On the other hand, we know there's millions of people that feel disenfranchised, right?

For whatever reason, they don't feel comfortable going to church. Their people don't go to church. They don't believe the same way. They get ridiculed, they've been shamed, guilted, they did something wrong.

You know, let me just look in the camera. We've all done something wrong. And the people that say they've never done anything wrong, they're liars. So therefore, they have done something wrong.

Everybody's Done something right. I mean, just by existing within a few minutes of taking a breath, we've probably done something wrong.

I mean, you know, and, you know, the thing is, what you're saying is that any of us, if we're following God, can come together and put that word out. So let me ask you this, then.

How important do you believe that online community is for these people that feel like their voice may not count, like being able to do what you and I are able to do, combined with the other people on faith, casters, combined with other people that know other people that are. That are following Christ, how important is it for people to be able to come together?

Bob: 00:33:48

Well, Hebrews talks about, don't forsaken, don't forsake the assembling of yourself together. You know, a lot of people take that means, see, you have to go to church. You can't have that online stuff.

But in this technology, we just use the example about going overseas. You know, I've preached overseas from my living room, you know, my office right here, Right. Every year there's a Bible school.

One of the people I went to Bible school with is an evangelist, and he has 5,000 people that past, 5,000 pastors that he has under him in India. And the pastors have churches, right? And he has a Bible school over there.

And every year I'm invited to speak to the graduating class, you know, about the Holy Spirit, things like that. And I've been. So I'm preaching, I don't have to pack up, go on a plane to Pakistan and do all this stuff. I'm doing it right here.

You know, we schedule it and boom, there's the class. I'm on camera. You know, they're on camera, and we do it. So the.

The idea that, you know, I'm imparting to them without going through all the hassles of the travels, right?

And they're taking what they're learning, and they're taking it out into the local villages and sharing it, you know, and so it may seem like I'm just little old me all by myself sitting here in this office, you know, it doesn't really matter, but you got to get over yourself, you know? Yeah, I would love to be, you know, invited to speak in churches and at conventions and be out on the platform. I've done it, you know, I did.

h Dr. Bernard Johnson back in: 1998

And we did 48 concerts in 48 cities in 48 weeks.

And I was his basically road manager from the time he said, bob, let's do something in Richmond, Virginia, from that moment until they introduced him, everything passed through me. I was involved with the entire ministry, set up everything. And I learned so much by doing that for two years, right? But I had the opportunity.

I preached in front of 6,000 people because I was the one who delivered the, the message for that night, you know, 15, 20 minutes, right? I preached in front of 6,000. It's just, I love it. I, I could do that all the time, but that's not my calling.

And towards the end of those two years, I realized God was calling me out to do something. So I had Dr. Johnson and I sat down, had a talk. He said, you gotta go with what the Lord leads, you know. And we separated at that point in time.

And about six months later, I end up here where I'm at now, you know, and, and, but the point being, you follow the leading of the Lord. My calling is not to preach once a week in front of 6,000 people. I might be preaching 6,000 people every day with this podcast. I don't know.

I, I do know because I can see the numbers, okay?

And over the last six years, we have had, it's closing in on 300,000 downloads, okay, so would I have been able to do that one convention center at a time? I preached and I rented my own convention center a couple of times.

Once I rented a 2,000 seat auditorium and because I screwed up the advertising on the dates, I had seven people in a 2,000 seat auditorium. That was a financial hit. Now I can go online and do a meeting and screw it up and nobody shows up.

I'm like, well, okay, well, at least I got the recording, so it goes on YouTube. So, you know, the point I'm trying to say is don't just look at it for the glory, you got to do it for the call.

And if it's the calling, it doesn't matter if there's one person.

I've preached so many times to this camera with nobody online, but yet when I come back and check the stats, two, three weeks later, 150 people watched it, you know, so would I rather have all 150 online while I'm doing? Oh, absolutely, absolutely. But again, that's the power of the Internet. They can watch it when they want, when it's good for them. So.

So don't get hung up on, you know, I don't know if this is going to work or not. If the Lord's leading it, the only thing you can do is obey. It may not be your calling.

He may want you to learn all about it, because six months from now, he's going to pair you with someone who has the ability to run with it, but they don't know what to do, and you'll help them. And then they take it and run with it and, you know, maybe they give you a little residual on what they're doing. Whatever. I don't know. That's.

That's for a different discussion, for a different day. But the point being, don't look at it from. Well, I. I did this for seven times and I only got seven views.

I think those are all the ones I checked, whether one it was working or not. You know, don't look at it like that. When I started my podcast, they stayed away by the thousands, right?

But now, like I said, six years later, closing in on 300, 000 downloads. That's somebody's, somebody's clicking download, you know, So I don't know the 300,000.

Now, some of them are mine, but I haven't clicked that thing 300,000 times. So that's. Just. Don't, don't get hung up on what it looks like. Just if the Lord's telling you to do it, that's what you got to do.

Obedience is better than sacrifice because he can work with obedience. So it is. If nobody's listening, sow it as a seed. Lord, I'm just putting this out there. You let somebody listen to it, may it be a blessing to them.

And you don't know where it's going to go from there.

Sean: 00:40:28

We get so hung up in the worldly system of influence and what somebody else is doing and jealousy, you know, Bob, one of the things I was thinking about the other day is, you know, it takes for. Especially for a big church. It takes a lot of humans to make sure a big church works.

You got to have people at the front door and you got to have security in today's environment. And I was at church the other day and one of the toilets was overflowing.

And of course, one of the guys that has a key to go, you know, get the appropriate materials so they can shut the toilet off. So quit overflowing. You know, here's the thing. People might have been healed that night. People might have been saved that night.

But the thing is, if that toilet wasn't fixed, Mina stopped Everything, you know, and who's more important on that Wednesday night.

The person giving the message, the person that makes sure the toilet's working, the person that makes sure that the children are taken care of, who's actually more important.

You know, and we can argue this any way that we want, but God uses an awful lot of, quote, unimportant people to be able to get the message out through one important person. And, and I think at the end of the day, the important person is as. Isn't as important as we think they are.

And the unimportant people are a lot more important.

Bob: 00:41:49

Oh, yeah.

Sean: 00:41:49

Than we think they are. We put ourselves, we set ourselves up as God in determining what's important when really God should be the one figuring out what's important.

Bob: 00:42:02

Yeah. Amen. Amen. Think about this. Think about, you know, you're up in Colorado, right? So it gets a little chilly up there, right?

Sean: 00:42:08

Yeah. Yeah.

Bob: 00:42:09

And imagine going to church and nobody. Somebody forgot to turn the heat on. Right? It's, yeah, it's that one person's job.

Come in in the morning, you know, it's 7:00 in the morning, turn the heat on. So when everybody comes in at 11, it's nice and toasty. Right. Well, I just decided I'm not going to church today. And everybody shows up.

All right, who dropped the ball? That one person made the difference for that one day.

So just like you said, you know, don't, don't look at anything the Lord tells you to do as being insignificant. There is no insignificance with God. Every person matters.

Sean: 00:42:57

Boy, Bob, I tell you what, I'm just thinking. I, I just hope those of you that are listeners right now, I hope you've been inspired by something Bob said today, maybe that I've said.

You're more important than you realize.

This doesn't need to have be a heady thing or an arrogant thing, but you're more important in God's kingdom than maybe you've been giving yourself credit, you know, and if God's calling you to do something, God's calling you to obey. God's calling you to go to the plow, pick up the tools and go do it.

I know from experience that I'm better off when I obey, you know, and it, you know that it's easy to just make that as a statement. But, but real life is, it's, it's not always easy to obey. Right. We have, we have bills to pay. We have, we have people to take care of.

We have people that are Counting on us in the middle of the night, waking us up, waking us up early. They have problems at night. You know, all. And we. We all have challenges, problems.

And yet if we find a way to give what God give what wants us to do, because he'll never give us more than we can handle. So as we wrap this up, Bob, is there any. Is there any other word of encouragement that you would give listeners right now?

Bob: 00:44:11

When in doubt, pray, just ask for direction. You know, wisdom, understanding, and direction. And you know, we. We're told in.

And I think it's first Thessalonians says, you know, when we pray, we know God hears our. Our prayers. And if we know he hears our prayers, therefore we can have the confidence that we receive the prayers we desired of them.

So if you ask, Jesus said, you'll receive. I'll just leave it at that.

Sean: 00:44:42

That's beautiful. Where can somebody reach you? Obviously there's faithcasters.org if you want to get involved with the podcasting.

But where's the number one place that you would send people to get connected with you, Bob?

Bob: 00:44:53

KCRpodcast.com KCRpodcast.com is the podcast website. Contact forms and you request interview. Interview time and all that's right there. The main ministry website, we just had it redesigned. Praise God.

FTFM.org that's for Freedom Through Faith Ministries. FTFM.org and that website looks awesome and. But those two places are the best.

Sean: 00:45:25

I'm looking forward to checking out FTFM.org Bob, my just distinct pleasure to have you here with me. It's always a pleasure and I hope everybody gets half as much out of it as I just did. This is just fabulous time, Bob. You make, you make my day.

You really do.

Bob: 00:45:46

I love that you finally took the plunge. Me too. I'm just blessed that you finally did it. I like, you know, yeah, there might.

Sean: 00:45:54

Be an angel in heaven rejoicing right now. Over.

Bob: 00:45:58

He was like, man, that was tough.

Sean: 00:46:02

He might have gotten to go back to heaven because his. His job was to get me to start the podcast and. And now that it started, he gets to go back up and get on his Lazy Boy. Amen.

Bob: 00:46:13

He needs a vacation now.

Sean: 00:46:15

He needs a vacation after having to persuade me. Bob, I love you and me too, brother. Just been a great, great time. Thank you so much.

Bob: 00:46:24

We'll talk again soon.

Sean: 00:46:26

Yeah, sounds good.