Live Free with Josh Howerton - Why This Christian Podcast Is Reaching Millions (And What’s Coming Next) | Live Free with Josh Howerton

Starting point is 00:00:00 Welcome to Live Free with Pastor Josh Howardton. We're so glad you're here. Lake Point Church is a movement for all people to know Jesus, live free, and make a difference with their lives. And this weekly podcast is all about helping you do just that. Each episode is a deep dive into the Word of God tackling life, culture, and faith with truth and clarity so you can be equipped to live free in Christ.

Starting point is 00:00:24 Thanks for tuning in. And be sure to subscribe so you never miss an episode and follow us on all our social platforms to stay connected to everything happening with Live Free. Now, let's dive into today's episode. Let's kick this pig. That's right. Hello, welcome to episodes 56.

Starting point is 00:00:43 Let's go. Right? Yes. Okay. Special bonus episode. Here's what we're going to do in the next few minutes. This is a state of the podcast address. So we want to take time at the end of the year.

Starting point is 00:00:55 I'm talking to you right now. Yeah, that's great. We're going to take some time. Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, you're welcome. We're going to take some time into the year and update listeners in the next. This is going to be brief on some, honestly, pretty incredible, like some data on how the pod's going.

Starting point is 00:01:11 We want you guys to stay up to speed on what you all honestly are doing. And then we want to talk about some new things that are coming and we want to solicit some feedback. So Carlos Zarazzo, please kick this pig. By the way, bro, you just finished preaching. and it took you one minute to get from... Is that true? Literally, our team timed it. You timed it?

Starting point is 00:01:33 You're fast. You're fast. I will just say, we are... I'm staring at thousands of people walking through the halls of Lake Point. Because, yes, one minute ago, I got off stage from Christmas services. I meant, last episode, let's go. This is basically the equivalent of having seen that meme that basically says, and with that, the 2025 live free season comes to an end.

Starting point is 00:01:54 Good night. So this is... This is that. Hey, man, I'm about to share some numbers with you. And before I do, I just said a couple things that people are asking, if somebody's wondering, why are these numbers important? You've said this before, Pastor Josh. I just want to make this clear. We're pastors not podcasters.

Starting point is 00:02:09 And so today, 83% of podcast consumers spend nine hours and 24 minutes listening to their favorite shows every week. And so we want to go where people are at. And so these numbers are not just stream, view, subscribers, followers. These are real people with real struggles, with real hunger for a real God. And so, man, crazy year. By the way, I have not heard this data. This is, all right, let's fire it so they know what's going on. Man, this year we've had 7.5 million live free views in place across all platforms.

Starting point is 00:02:38 Are you kidding me? Year to date, 7.5 million. 7.5 million. Okay. 3.5 million total live free YouTube views. So just on YouTube 3.5. There was a 375% increase on YouTube subscribers. We basically gained 480.

Starting point is 00:02:56 81,000 new subscribers. That is stupid. Okay. 182 countries listen to live free. Really? Shouted to the international family. All right. Four million streams on Apple and Spotify, audio and only.

Starting point is 00:03:07 What? Four million. Okay. Top four on religion and spirituality on Apple podcast. Hey, we cracked three once. That's right. And we did. For like a minute.

Starting point is 00:03:17 Yeah. It was great. Is dang Tara Lee Cobb? Oh my goodness. She won't let us pass her. She just gave us a minute and then she's like enough. For like 30 seconds, we passed her twice. And like top 160 on all categories of all podcasts on Apple.

Starting point is 00:03:32 Man, ready for socials? Yeah, social media, man. It grew a little bit this year. We added 1.4 million followers on Facebook this year. Jeez. 600,000 followers on Instagram in like basically a span of seven to eight months. Oh my gosh. Okay.

Starting point is 00:03:48 258,000 followers on TikTok. Ready for a total social media view count? This is, this includes Facebook Reel. TikTok, YouTube shorts, IG Reels, all the things. This is everything. 867 million views. Oh my gosh. Shout it to the social media team at Lake Point and Jason Howardton and everybody else helping out.

Starting point is 00:04:10 It's insane. Can I just interrupt? So like the reason that is a little overwhelming, we literally started this as like a test drive. Literally a year ago. A year ago, we were like, let's do one sermon series where we do a little deep. deeper dive podcast, and maybe a few hundred lake pointers will listen to it. And honestly, we have been, like, completely stunned. And here in a second, we're going to, we want to get some feedback from listeners

Starting point is 00:04:37 because there's some things we want to, like, hone in the next season. And we've got some new things coming we want to talk about. So you keep going on if you got any more data. A couple more wins. I mean, 400% increase in church online attendance this year. So obviously we're always inviting people to take a next step. And one of those is to join church online and then do. more. We've had over 10,000 people download the show notes, aka our discipleship guide.

Starting point is 00:05:02 At the last 10 to 15 episodes, we've had an average of 200,000 views in streams per episode. Again, an increasing amount of number. And man, honestly, like, again, these are real people. So we just literally received hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands of emails and messages of people sharing their story. Man, this is how Live Free has blessed my life. It's fun to see social media grow. We are passionate about seeing people grow. And their faith grow. And so, You've said this before. We are not in the viewership business. We are in the discipleship business.

Starting point is 00:05:31 And so we've literally not only had people share their story, but we've had many people come in person from all over the place. Quick story here. Molly from Chicago, Lake Point, this is what she said. Lake Point appeared on my YouTube feed a while back. And then she tuned into the Live Free Podcast. And this is what she said. I began to reconnect with God and gain a deeper understanding of his character that sparked re-ignited my faith in a part. powerful way. She literally just flew to Lake Point

Starting point is 00:05:58 all back and got baptized with us. Over 15% of the first time guests in our church this year came from the podcast or social media or YouTube. I believe that. And by the way, we're literally just getting started to kind of organize herself so we can measure it better. And then

Starting point is 00:06:14 again, just men, a bunch of men finding their band of brothers, joining a life group and then gathering together to continue to deepen their faith together, man. So praise the Lord. Wow. That's honestly, that's stupid. That is legit. That is stupid what you just said.

Starting point is 00:06:29 Here's what we'd like to do. So for real, I want your help. And this isn't something that we like, we just say and we don't do. Like, we actually are going to comb comments on this thing. So here's what I would ask. If you're a listener, if you could head over to YouTube, and in the comments,

Starting point is 00:06:48 here's the question that would be legit helpful for us. Why? I keep asking people this. Why is it working so well? Like, you know, as a leader, I'm always like, when you have success, autopsy the success, because if you don't know why it's working, you won't know how to fix it when it breaks. So honestly, for listeners, we need your help. Why, in your opinion, is the podcast working and growing like it is?

Starting point is 00:07:11 What do you like? What is it like? Guys, keep doing this. This is what I love about it. If you could put that in the comments on YouTube in particular, we're going to take some time around this time of the year, you know, kind of between Christmas, New Year's and all this stuff. And we want to do an autopsy and get your feedback. So again, please, if you could, head over YouTube, drop in the comments.

Starting point is 00:07:32 You know, why do you think it's working? I'm really curious. Can I ask you a question? Please do. Josh, you've mentioned behind the scenes. You've talked about the philosophy around the podcast and kind of how you see social media. Would you share a little bit about what that is and how that's evolved? Yeah, let me give a little bit of like the pastoral and theological philosophy behind a pod.

Starting point is 00:07:51 And then I want to finish because this is a much shorter episode. So we want to make this like a, this is for our podcast fam. This is like a state of the union address. So I want to finish by talking about some very important new things that are coming. Okay. But wait, what was your question? Oh, the philosophy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Starting point is 00:08:10 Okay, philosophy. Okay, so here's a philosophy, and this kind of shapes why we do what we do and what we may do in the future. So from a discipleship perspective, a lot of times what you've heard me talk about is we'll think air war, ground war, discipleship. Ground war is applying the gospel to people, men, women, and families. That's applying the gospel down here. Air war is applying the gospel out there to the culture, to culture, politics, society, stuff out there. I'm a, you know, I say this also. I'm like, I'm a military history guy. So if, just like in an actual hot conflict, if one army has ground super, and they can win all the ground war, but they have no air war.

Starting point is 00:09:00 Then every time they win battles on the ground and take ground, then the enemy just sends in their air force with air superiority, and they take back all the ground that you took on the ground, okay, with their air war. So honestly, what I started realizing in 2020 is what I felt like churches in general were good at ground war discipleship. Hey man, let's apply the Bible to your family and to yourself and not very good at air war.

Starting point is 00:09:33 Let's help you think about cultural issues, cultural, political, societal issues. And as a result, what I felt like kept happening is Christians would get disciples in church, then they'd walk out the door, and then they'd get all these cultural voices that were doing essentially reverse discipleship. They were like undiscipleship.

Starting point is 00:09:52 were undoing what we were doing. So really what the podcast has given me the ability to do as a pastor is like, I refuse to let my pulpit get hijacked by the issue of the week and let CNN headlines steer what I'm going to preach in church. Like what we do at Lake Point, if you're, you know, unfamiliar with this thing, is we pretty much exclusively, we preach through books of the Bible, verse by verse, and it's a lot of ground war. But there's constantly these issues that people got questions about.

Starting point is 00:10:21 they're like, man, how do I think about this? What's the Bible say about? The pod has given us an ability to do air war discipleship for our people in addition to just like going deeper into the word and going maybe a little layer down. Now there's a bunch of stuff that, you know, maybe I, you and I have talked. Is there anything that I left out there that you're like, dude, you should say that. Yeah. How do you see, we've talked about social media being the aeropacus?

Starting point is 00:10:48 Yeah, social media is the modern day, the modern day. the modern day area obics. So act 17 if you're watching on YouTube we have thousands of people walking into our Christmas services and then I'm waving at them. Act 17 Paul goes into the aeropagus, Mars Hill. That's where they quote unquote spent all their time debating and telling new ideas. Social media whether pastors like it or not, it's the modern day areaopagus. That's where people debate ideas. And what the Bible commands pastors and churches to do is quote unquote, we destroy arguments and take every thought captive, every pretension that sets itself up

Starting point is 00:11:23 against the knowledge of God. So we don't just disciple people. We destroy evil, godless ideologies. This is really helpful. I will say, it dawned on me about three months into doing this podcast, that the podcast is like the 2025 version of Sunday Night Church

Starting point is 00:11:43 from when I was growing up as a kid. Hey, guys. From when I was growing up as a kid. So, you know, when I was a kid, I would go to big church on Sunday morning. Then I'd come back on Sunday night, and that was like when the pastor, he'd go a little deeper. It was a little more conversational. More intimate. Yeah, more intimate.

Starting point is 00:12:00 You know, you can ask a couple questions. Here's what the Greek word is. A little more raw. Yeah, yeah. And I realized, like, oh, that's what this is. It's a way to get another 90 minutes of Bible teaching into people. Here's the last thing I'll say, and this kind of leads into the new things that are coming for the pod that we're really excited to roll out. the big thing that I'm excited about is, you know, Carlos said it.

Starting point is 00:12:26 Our big thing is, hey man, it's called live free, not learn free. So we're not in the view count business. We're in the disciple business. So what we want to do at Lake Point is like, I'm going to get a little nerdy here, is vertically aligned discipleship. So what we noticed was starting to happen is people will listen to sermon. Then they'd walk out the door, they'd listen to the podcast, and then just organically there's like all these groups especially of men who are just they're like

Starting point is 00:12:54 randomly finding each other picking like coffee shops and diners and going hey man let's meet seven a m one day before work let's talk about what god is teaching us in the word through sermon and podcasts and let's confess in talk about what we're going to do about it and it's it's vertically aligning sermon, then Bible study via podcast, then their discipleship group. We really want to lean into that more and more in the coming year, which leads us to some exciting things we got coming up. I'm excited. So I hear we're working on a new app. Okay, that's right. So let me just, so that's a little pod drop there. So here's we got, it's live now, right? It's live now, that's right. All right. So ladies and gentlemen, I am very pleased to announce we have now, that's right, that's it, that was the, there's your, there's your drum roll. We just, it literally just went live, a completely redesigned Lake Point app that is designed to facilitate vertically aligned discipleship for people that are in our, our ecosphere. So here's what this does. And you, by the way, how can they download it?

Starting point is 00:14:07 They can text the word app to 20411, and you should get a link. That's great. So text app to the number 2041. They'll get a link to that. And what the app's designed to do is in the next year, you're going to see this. We want to lean real heavy into catalyzing discipleship via the podcast because, man, I love people learning about the Bible, but we become good men and women of God by actually finding bands of brothers.

Starting point is 00:14:36 So what the app's designed to do is like, it's all just right there. So every sermon, you'll be able to click on in the app, and immediately everything pops up. There's the sermon. There's the corresponding podcast that was a deeper dive into that sermon. What's new is starting in the new year. In that same spot, there'll be an aligned Bible reading plan, one chapter per day for a live for live for live nation that goes along with the sermon and the podcast. And then obviously we also have the disciple guide, the show notes. So what you'll be able to do is go, okay, man, if you attend

Starting point is 00:15:19 Lake Point, that's awesome. If not in person, you can click on that, you can find the sermon, and it's all right there, sermon, podcast, one chapter per day, Bible reading plan for that week, and then the disciple guide. So you'll be able to grab, like, you know, your disciple group, your guys, and go, hey man, let's meet. Let's all hit the sermon, hit the pod, chapter a day. Let's walk in, talk about what the Lord's do in our life. And then we want to scale and catalyze life-on-life discipleship.

Starting point is 00:15:49 That's right. And so because we want people to do that as well, like if you know this, we have a new live-free episode every single Monday. But if you download the app, you will have early access to the live-free podcast episode by Sunday. And so if you went in a little early, you will also get that on the app exclusively. That's right. That's going to be great. That's a big news.

Starting point is 00:16:08 That's a big news. That's a big deal. That's right. That's right. Daily Bible reading. It's going to be fun. It is going to be fun. The whole church reading the whole, the same thing. It is going to be fun. We got some ideas that we may roll out if the pod keeps growing like it is. We got some things in the hopper. But you'll see, man. It's going to be a lot of fun. 2026. It's going to be a lot of fun. I will say this. This is a little thing that I just, I wonder. I'm just going to say something I wonder.

Starting point is 00:16:30 It's like rush, there's a guy from my, there's rush, there's a guy from my root of group, just walked by. Thanks. There's something happening in the church in America right now. What I've always said is what we want to see is reformation and revival for a resurgence of the church in our day. I feel like we're starting to see some rumbens. What I wonder if could happen is if we could start to see live free, with the astronomical growth we're seeing and some ideas we got in the back of our heads,

Starting point is 00:17:07 I wonder if we might end up being able to leverage the podcast as like a staging grounds for Christians' strategy for cultural engagement in our nation. And it just becomes the staging grounds for the resurgence of the church. Wow. Who knows? We'll see. Let's go, man.

Starting point is 00:17:24 Come on, man. I like it. That's it. Carlos, for Live Free Nation listeners, in addition to heading over to YouTube and legit, we need, we need your feedback. Why do you think it's working? That's what we want to know.

Starting point is 00:17:39 What do you love about it? Why do you think it's working? So we can double down. In addition to giving us that feedback, if people are listening and going on, what can I do to help? I believe in what y'all are doing. What can I do to help?

Starting point is 00:17:51 What's the answer to that question? I would say, well, we would say get involved. First of all, reach out. if you can email us at, Arthur, is it, what is it? Podcasts at lakepoint.church, reach out and we'd love to get to know you. Also text the word, is it connect to 20411? Again, let us know, hey, I came from the pod. I'm interested in helping out, and then we'd love to get you plugged in.

Starting point is 00:18:17 Man, we literally are getting people from like all over the world. I'm not even kidding. It's insane. I'm not even kidding. And so, man, this year has been amazing. Yeah. And I'll tag on to what you just said. I know people, you may think it's small, it's not small.

Starting point is 00:18:32 Like the stories we get a lot, and I hope everybody receives this the right way. We want everybody to listen to the pod. Apparently, you know, our data tells us we're uniquely connecting with dudes. And very frankly, the church has not historically been awesome at reaching, disciplining, and activating young men. And that's like the lion's share of the people that are. listening. So I will say, man, the story we hear a lot is somebody shared the podcast with me. Or, you know, you guys talked about the Charlie Kirk Memorial. You talked about, I didn't know

Starting point is 00:19:07 what to think about immigration stuff or Christian nationalism or whatever the thing is. Or I don't know, all the stuff we've done. Whatever it is. Quite a few. And then people, they send it to a buddy that's interested in like the issue. And he's like, oh, dang, that was actually legit helpful. Then they get hooked. And that's how. the thing is growing so much. So I will say when people, I know it sounds dumb, it's not whatever, when people like, subscribe, share the content, that's how the thing went from, you know, like, I think the first episode, like a couple hundred church members. And then now it's like, you know, seven million downloads or whatever. That's how it happened is people being like,

Starting point is 00:19:50 we need the church hearing this and sharing it. And that's the wildfire effect. Carlos, I love you and I love our listeners. I have to go preach my seventh Christmas service right now. Go do it, man. Live free, brother. Live free, brother. Thanks for tuning in to Live Free with Pastor Josh Howardton. We pray today's episode helped you take a step forward in life, culture, and faith as you live free in Christ.

Starting point is 00:20:14 If it encouraged you, be sure to rate, review, and share the podcast, and don't forget to subscribe so you'll never miss an episode. Join us for Lake Point Church online every weekend and find you. more resources at lakepoint.church slash live free. We'll see you next time.

Live Free with Josh Howerton - Why This Christian Podcast Is Reaching Millions (And What’s Coming Next) | Live Free with Josh Howerton

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