NOTE: I got carried away with the story that follows. It’s a good one, but if you’re not in the mood to read or if you just don’t have time, here’s the TL/DR: Holy Ghost Stories is growing and we need you to give to help make some very exciting things happen.
You can make a tax-deductible gift (monthly or one-time) here.
Thank you.
-Justin
In January of 2021, I hit “publish” on the first three pieces of an exciting new project I’d cooked up in my closet over several months.
My wife snagged a picture of that moment:
Clearly, we were all excited.
I was tired, too. I had just done So. Much. Work.
My shoulders and eyebrows raised, I hugged my wife and we prayed and I waited to see if anyone would listen to what I made. They were just “Bible stories,” but narrative Scripture has always held a special allure for me and I truly believed (as I do now—in fact, I believe it even more strongly now) that telling those stories was an act of hope and defiance in an increasingly disenchanted world. I believed there was power in those stories and I thought people would want to hear them immersively told.
So I clicked the publish button and we prayed and I cleaned the house and taught a science class for my homeschooled daughters and made a cup of noodles for lunch.
I’d quit a job I loved and we’d moved out of the country to save money for a while, all because we’d come to believe God wanted me to do something new for Him. I still didn’t know what that thing was, but Holy Ghost Stories seemed like the right kind of thing.
Of course, people would vote with their feet. And how would they vote?
I woke up the next morning to 70 glowing reviews on Apple Podcasts and freaked out.
I don’t know if 70 seems like a big number to you (I suppose context has a lot to do with that), but it felt huge to me that morning. Friends texted kind words. My wife and kids and I hugged again and prayed some more. And I decided to make more episodes.
Knowing that success of any kind can be a moving target in one’s mind, I got my head straight at the beginning. If at some point 1,000 people consistently listen to Holy Ghost Stories, that will be great. That will be work worth doing, I decided.
I stand by that decision.
But over the past (almost) three years, things have proceeded differently.
Last month, Holy Ghost Stories episodes were downloaded more than 25,000 times. In a little more than a year, Holy Ghost Stories live shows have, in collaboration with dozens of musicians, brought almost 4,000 people (in six states and on two continents) into faith-shaping encounters with their God. I’ve been approached by an Austrailian radio station about syndicating HGS for their million-strong audience.
In July we published a gorgeous 390-page companion to the Exodus series that’s leading individuals and groups around the country into deeper meditation and time with Yahweh.
And I regularly get emails like this:
I want to let you know how much I love what you’re doing.
I was in a very dark place 2 years ago & experienced church hurt & spiritual abuse to an extent I never thought possible.
My feelings about Christians, church, and even God stopped me from going to church. I didn’t want to hear any form of preaching and I had no desire to read the Bible.
…But then I heard about your podcast. I saved it to my library in Apple Podcasts, but was still too nervous to listen to it.
One day, I decided to be brave & listened to at least one episode (not knowing what to expect). I think I might have ended up listening to 3 in a row.
Laughing, crying, ooh-ing, aww-ing…& ultimately discovering the God I never really knew, through questions & a point of view that I was never taught/told & had never thought of before……from a son who has his [Heavenly] Father’s beautiful gift of storytelling.
I believe God has used HGS as a part of my healing journey. I don’t think I’m completely healed yet, but I am a lot more open now than I was a year ago.
-Ashley
Last Sunday night, I received a message from someone who brought his cousin to the HGS Live show in Arkansas. That evening, he’d leaned over at the beginning of the show to quickly explain to her who Moses was. Once he got home, he sent this:
I know it’s late, but I wanted to tell you thank you. My cousin told me she wanted to give her life to the Lord tonight in the dar on the ride home! I’m so grateful for all you do. She just kept telling me, “Wesley, I feel so comforted. I want this!”
I cried when I read that.
I share all of this because it all helps me to see that God is doing incredible things with Holy Ghost Stories—things far beyond whatever I’m capable of. Also, I’m telling you all of this because if you pray for or give to this ministry of storytelling, these beautiful messages are “fruit credited to your account” (Philippians 4:17).
*
Well, I’ve already broken like sixteen of the fundraising rules I researched last week in preparation for Giving Tuesday. Get to the point, Gerhardt, they’d tell me in the webinar.
But I think all of this is the point, isn’t it? At least half of it. God is doing amazing things with Holy Ghost Stories. That’s the first bottom line.
The second is this. It’s a two-parter: I need your financial partnership to keep going. And I can’t do this.
Sometimes I listen to the end credits of podcasts and sit in wonder and confusion at the list of names. A recent episode of Revisionist History listed three corporate sponsors and no less than twelve crucial roles filled by a dozen different people before they finally got to Malcolm Gladwell’s name—this is what it took to create a single episode of that podcast.
Have you listened to the end credits of Holy Ghost Stories? They’re short. I just stop listing the roles I fulfill because it sounds ridiculous. Thank the Lord for my incredibly talented wife who gives feedback on each episode after I write it and before I record.
But that’s it. That’s the team.
She’s a very part-time volunteer and I went to sleep last night at 4am after I finished editing the score on an episode.
It’s time for help.
I don’t usually cry when I look at archive photos from vintage cooking shows, but I came across this photograph of Julia Child this week and it almost brought me to tears:
One, two, three, four, five people seated on the floor just off camera. Pie plate magically at the ready when she needs it. A shucked ear of corn appearing at just the right moment. Someone whispering a cue. A pair of hands to grab a lemon that rolls off the counter.
Child’s show would not have been the same without those heroes on the floor. No—Child’s show could not have happened without those heroes.
Slowly but surely, Yahweh is leading me out of my troublesome independence and delusions of self-sufficiency. This email is a part of that.
In short (too late for that?) Holy Ghost Stories needs a team. I believe God is prompting me to expand next year’s budget and make a couple of full-time hires, maybe a part-time hire as well. This would ensure that the things God wants to do with these stories don’t end up being bottlenecked by a stubborn man who didn’t want to ask others to help.
So we’re prayerfully working to raise a budget of $350K. What will this newly funded team approach accomplish? Good question.
Holy Ghost Stories will continue to bring people around the world into life-changing moments with Yahweh in His stories.
We’ll be able to continue and expand the work of Holy Ghost Stories Live, bringing these events to more cities (and subsidizing that cost) without crushing me under the weight of all the planning, preparing, and logistics.
More episodes of HGS will be scored with powerful original music. (I can only draw from pre-composed music for so long.)
HGS Live will find its way behind the walls of U.S. prisons, bringing beauty and hope and moments of Encounter to incarcerated populations across the country.
We’ll work toward syndication on Austrailian radio, reaching as many as 1,000,000 people on that continent.
Actual marketing efforts (how novel!) will help new audiences discover Holy Ghost Stories and find themselves startled by Yahweh’s presence in narrative Scripture.
All of this is Lord-willing, of course. But it’s also you-willing. Holy Ghost Stories isn’t me. It’s us. It’s not mine. It’s ours. And the more we lean into that truth, the more exciting things get. Here’s some perspective: if every person who listened to Holy Ghost Stories last month pitched in with a monthly gift of $7, we wouldn’t have a yearly budget of $350K. It’d be twice that.
Sometimes I feel a little crazy, given the very simple economics of this podcast: I devote full-time working hours to creating something I give away for free. The only way this works is if people like you pitch in and give in response to that gift.
It’s not very Capitalist.
But I think it’s very Kingdom.
If you agree, here’s where to give a tax-deductible one-time or recurring gift:
“This service that you perform is not only supplying the needs of the Lord’s people but is also overflowing in many expressions of thanks to God.”
2 Corinthians 9:12
Oh—and there’s a surprise waiting for you in the podcast feed: a bonus episode in honor of Giving Tuesday. As you’ll hear, it’s a bit different than the normal HGS approach. —For one, it’s written and narrated by my wife and manuscript editor, JL Gerhardt; for another, the fourth wall is completely shattered (in a lovely way).
Enjoy!
If you just scrolled to the end of all that text up there and would rather watch a video version of some of it, or if you’re in the mood to hang out with my wife and I for a bit, here you go:
Thanks again for prayerfully considering financial partnership. It’s exciting work we’re doing together!
Gratefully,
Justin
Prayers and support will continue from Peru, Ne. Watched your insta video Monday morning. God continues to bless you guys. This is definitely good work that is reaching out to ALL kinds of people.
This bonus episode was wonderful. Pretty soon after it started, I recognized the story, but her skillful telling of it made it more real and thought-provoking.
I listened to the IG video and really have just one thing to throw out there - while you're working on all these exciting possibilities, maybe add in just one more, one more artery going out from the heart - I heard (and understand the prompting) you saying that you're thinking more of telling these stories to people who know nothing of God.
But I also heard the references to so many people who have heard and/or used to try to follow Jesus but have turned away for various reasons who are being renewed and brought back to faith - so maybe you can think of what might even be a second branch of the work - please be sure to continue the efforts to speak to these people who need Jesus just as much as those who have never heard of Him.
I love this work. It has helped me personally, and I know it can help so many more. I wish I could do more in the way of support, but I surely will continue to pray for HGS and the people who listen.