Pints With Aquinas - BIG news about me and Pints With Aquinas

Episode Date: November 22, 2017

Please support Pints With Aquinas here: Patreon.com/pwa

Hey, what's up? Fellow Thomas, Matt Fradd here from Pints with Aquinas. Thank you very much for downloading this podcast. This isn't a typical podcast. We're not going to be discussing Aquinas. Instead, we're going to be discussing Pints with Aquinas and some big news, some big decisions that both my wife and I have made. This is kind of weird, right? Because I'm speaking into a microphone and I know that there's literally tens of thousands of people listening to this. So I'm just going to imagine someone in front of me who is super friendly, that always helps, and is a fan, you know, because I got to say some stuff that's kind of, you know, kind of personal. And gosh, we live in a weird day and age, don't we? I think I've said this before, my mom and dad, when I was a kid, they had a phone connected to the wall. They didn't even

have an answering machine. That was literally the only way you could get a hold of them. Actually, that's not true. You could write them a letter and send it by post. That was it. But if you wanted to get in touch with my mom or dad, you called them. If they weren't there, you went down to the shops to see if they were there. That was literally your only options, right? Today, I'm speaking to 10,000 people and I'm literally sitting in my underwear. I apologize that I just gave you that visual, but it's true. And I'm drinking coffee because it's the morning time. And, you know, it's weird. It's a weird world we live in, but it's a good world too. You know, when I started Pints with Aquinas, I know there are

some of you who are still freaking out that I told you I'm sitting in my underwear I'm sorry we'll discuss modesty and what Aquinas said at a later date when I started Pines with Aquinas about a year and a half ago I did so just for fun I kind of did it to get some extra credit at school quite frankly and I wasn't even advertising it I had like 10 episodes out and haven't even told anybody about it over Twitter and people were just finding it gradually. As of today, Pints with Aquinas has been downloaded in well over a hundred countries, well over a million times, and we get approximately a hundred thousand downloads a month. How did that happen? I don't know. I think what happened was people have an intellectual curiosity and a hunger for truth.

And you correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that there's a lot of intellectually lonely Christians out there. You know, like they go to these young adult conferences or they, and maybe they've got all these questions that bother them and maybe the people around them, they're not so bothered by them. I don't know. We live in a crazy age too, right? And we need to be rational. Like what we need is Jesus Christ. That's what we need. And I think, but in order to kind of get to Christ and his demands upon us and all those sorts of things, we need to be able to rationally think about it. And that's what Aquinas gives us. And I think that's why the podcast has become so popular. So guess what I've decided to do? Here's the big news,

ready? Here's the big news. I just quit my job. You might not have known that I had a job, but I did. I had a job that gave me a salary. And my speaking engagements went to offset that salary. It was a good job. Very good people. Very good people. But I feel like I want to devote more time to Pines with Aquinas and traveling and speaking and writing. And that's it. Yes, writing and speaking and traveling on the issue of pornography as well as philosophy. So I'm not dropping that at all. But I want to devote all my time to this because up until now, I haven't been able to make Pines with Aquinas the best podcast it can be. Sometimes I'll have those episodes, part one, part two. Yeah, I just did Edward Fazer a couple of weeks ago. The reason for that, quite frankly, is I'm trying to spread them out because it takes

a lot of time to do this. But I don't want to do that anymore. I actually want to make really good, good podcasts, like great podcasts. A lot of you have said you want them longer. You want more interviews. I want to do all that. And so I just quit my job. Now that's scary because I'm losing a lot of money in doing that, like literally. And I'm sharing way too much information, but hey, this is the 21st century, so it's okay. I've even, my wife and I sold our house. We lived in suburbia and, you know, we decided to move up to the mountains in North Georgia to buy, we're renting actually now, a little house,

like a little house. It was a lot cheaper. We're trying to live a lot more simply, quite frankly. And honestly, getting out of suburbia is helpful because in suburbia, I'd go to coffee shops and everyone looked terrific and dressed terrific and their kids dressed terrific and everyone looked terrific and their cars were terrific and they didn't have dents in them and they certainly didn't have minivans. But that's not true. They had minivans.

Mine has dents all over it. I'm trying to live more simply. So here's the deal. I need your support now more than ever. It's kind of ridiculous, right, that I'm doing this. I'm quitting my job and then asking for support. I'm kind of jumping off of a mountain and then hoping that the parachute works and hoping I packed it correctly and I never checked in the first place. But I need your support

because this is Pines with Aquinas is now, right? As soon as like my final date ends with my job, like my only source of income, like steady income. Like I travel and speak. But that's it. So I know that I need to incentivize you to do that, right? It's not enough to say, hey, support me. I know a lot of you are amazing and do that on Patreon. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. But I really need you. If you've been considering supporting Pints with Aquinas for a while, now would be a good time so my wife doesn't pass out. Okay, so look, I want to incentivize you.

So here's what I've done. I've changed Patreon around. I've got different rewards that I give you. They're new rewards. So I want to tell you what they are. If you can give five bucks a month, you'll get access to an ever-growing library of exclusive in-depth Pints with Aquinas interviews with philosophers, converts, and apologists. You'll also get early access to the ever-growing library of exclusive in-depth Pints with Aquinas interviews with philosophers, converts, and apologists. You'll also get early access to the Pints with Aquinas comic strips. If you can give 10 bucks a month, you'll get exclusive monthly videos. I will also send you an amazing book that's been edited by Ralph McInerney. It's about a thousand pages long. It's called Thomas Aquinas Selected Writinas selected writings this is incredible it actually goes through aquinas's writings chronologically you know when he was a novice

to when he was you know teaching in paris and so forth it's an amazing amazing book and i will ship that to your door all i ask is that you pay for shipping uh you'll also get access to an ever-growing library of audio books that we're producing. We've already got a couple. There's Papal Encyclicals, Works by St. Thomas Aquinas. Yeah, so that's cool. If you give $10 a month. If you give $20 a month, I'm going to send you a Pints with Aquinas beer stein for free. That's ridiculous, but there you go. So, we had those Pints with Aquinas beer steins recently. Remember, we sold them. They sold out in a day, one day, one day, a hundred of them were sold out. So I just bought a hundred more with like my last pennies. And, um, so basically if you give 20 bucks a month, I, uh,

we'll send you this beer stein. Now that's, that's a lot of money, you know, like, please don't just support to get the stein and then stop supporting me. Cause then that'll money, you know, like, please don't just support to get the Stein and then stop supporting me because then that'll be, you know, it's not like I'm a big corporation with lots of money who can just lose money. So, all I ask again is that you just pay for the shipping on that, but we'll pay for the beer Stein, box it up, send it to you, to your front door. I'll give you a phone call if you give me 20 bucks a month and say hi, if that freaks you out, I'll thank you by not calling you. And then you can give more and I give you more, but that's basically it. Okay. So a couple of things I have in store, right? Like one, I'm going to be doing longer interviews. I'm going to be doing interviews with people.

I'm never going to interview someone who's not drinking though. That's the, you have to be drinking to do this podcast. That's the new deal. Secondly, I want to start and I'm going to start doing really high quality videos. You know, Father Mike Schmitz, he does those videos on YouTube. He's super attractive and I'm not, but other than that, the quality will be just the same. So right now, as I record this, I've got 353 patrons. Once I get 430 patrons, that's when I start doing those videos. Water's cheap, whiskey costs money. Water's cheap or free actually, usually. Whiskey costs money. So if you want to support me, those are a couple of things I'm going to commit to. And I want these things to go from good to great. I have

a lot of other ideas actually, but there's a few of them. Now, there is so much more that could be said that I want to get into if you're interested in kind of like learning why my wife and I chose to make this crazy decision. But I'm not going to share all of that here. I'll have my wife and I record a little podcast. We'll throw it up to our Patreon supporters so y'all can hear why we've chose to make this decision. But that's basically it. That's the big news. I mean, come on, that is big news. That is big news. I cannot thank you enough for listening to Pines with Aquinas. And right now, as I say, those 353 patrons, bless you. Thank you so very much for being so awesome. That's it, man. That's it. So here's the plug. I want you to support me. So go to pineswithaquinas.com, click support.

There, you can very easily give two bucks a month, five bucks a month, 10 bucks a month, 20 bucks a month. I'm going to give you those different rewards in return. You can also start asking me questions. I can respond to them because I don't have time to respond to all the questions that I'm getting over Facebook and Twitter and Instagram. By the way, if you DM me over those things, I don't respond to them because I get too many. So it's no offense. I love you. You're a good person. I just can't afford to do that. That's it, man. That's all I got to say. So I hope that helps. I think I'll leave it at that. Thank you so much for tuning in week after week. And thank you so much to everyone who's going to support me. Your support means more

than you can know. Also, there's probably people out there who are like, I don't want to support you. That's totally fine. You know, that's totally cool. Like I listen to things that ask me to support them and I don't. I also do support things that I really appreciate, like catching foxes, shout out. But yeah, I get it. It's fine. That's all right. Also, maybe you're listening and you're like, I want to support you, but I literally can't, dude. I'm a seminarian. I make no money or whatever. I got six kids. Yeah, don't support me. Please make sure that money goes to your family. Please, please, please. But I just want to say that if you pray for Plains with Aquinas and my listeners, it would mean the world to me. I've told you that we have

people contacting us and telling us how they're growing in the faith, that this podcast is what got them through RCIA when they had like a, maybe a not great RCIA instructor. I've told you we've had at least two people I know that have said, actually two or three, three, I think, who have said they've literally converted to Catholicism because of Ponce the Aquinas. And I have to imagine that's only going to increase as the show gets better and longer and over time. So thanks so much for supporting me. And thanks so much for your prayers. Please pray for them because without the grace of God, I'm just an Australian bloke sitting in my underwear, chatting into a microphone and ain't nobody got time for that. But the Holy Spirit does beautiful things.

So, all right, that's it. God bless. Thank you. You rock, you rock, you rock.

Bye. And I would give my whole life To carry you, to carry you And I would give my whole life To carry you, to carry you And I would give my whole life To carry you, to carry you.