Well, tomorrow is the day. The Holy Ghost Stories podcast launches first thing in the morning.
I.
Am.
Thrilled.
In many ways, this is the culmination of so many months’ planning and work and prayer. This entire move we made—leaving a job I loved, leaving a career I loved, leaving a church we love, leaving friends we love…….it was all to enable my pursuit of a new calling, a new kind of work I think could bless the kingdom in deep and abiding ways.
Over the last several months, you have cheered me on and rooted for my success. You’ve given my family gifts to sustain us on our journey. You’ve housed us when we we were renting our place to Airbnb guests. You’ve listened intently to my thoughts about the kind of work I want to do, nodding affirmingly when everything I said was frustratingly vague (believe me, the fog was frustrating to me too). And for those of you who weren’t around in person to do that stuff, you jumped in on this newsletter—it’s been a huge encouragement to have you wanting to hear from me.
In short, you’re my people. And that means two things:
I’m so very grateful for you.
I’m going to be counting on you to get Holy Ghost Stories off to a great start.
With regard to that second reality, I really mean it—I’ve got a couple of simple things you can do to enable the kind of work I’ve upended my life to begin doing:
First, you can listen to it. Easy, right? Each episode is 25 minutes long—to get the full experience, find a quiet spot and headphones or a good speaker (your car would be great) and drink in the moody goodness of the story.
Second, you can tell someone about it. If you dig it, text somebody a link and tell them you think they’d dig it too. You’ve got friends who trust your taste—they’d love to get a podcast recommendation from you. Every text you send is a great act of love and support in my behalf.
Third, leave a super-quick review. I timed it just now—it takes 26 seconds (if you go slowly). Time well spent! When I’m browsing podcasts, I rely quite a bit on reviews to make sure what I’m looking at is worth checking out—the more reviews, the more I’m likely to hit Play.
That’s it—support fresh Kingdom work (and the entire Gerhardt family!) simply by listening to a good story, telling a few friends to check it out, and busting out a 20-second review. Easy!
I’m telling you: when I scroll through the people who subscribe to this newsletter I can’t help but smile. I know and love most of you (and those of you I don’t know, I hope to meet someday!) Thank you for loving me so far, and thanks in advance for supporting this work.
Reply with a fistbump if you’re in. I’d love to know you’re going to be listening.
You’ll get one more email tomorrow, to help remind you to tune in when you get a chance. Then I’ll leave you alone for a while, I promise. :)
Gratefully,
Justin
P.S. If you’re an Instagram person, you should follow Holy Ghost Stories there if you haven’t already. I’ll be posting some fun stuff once we get rolling tomorrow.