Well, thanks for joining us again for another podcast of Struggling Well. This is a historical kind of a podcast. This is number 156, which marks the three-year anniversary of this podcast.
Sus is in charge of sound effects. We've unleashed this.
Here it comes. There it goes.
All right. We've unleashed this new thing for her that may be the worst thing we ever decided to do. But anyway, so yeah, three years.
All right, enough sound effects.
but in all seriousness, It's been 3 years, over 19, 000 downloads of this podcast that began. We'll talk a little about more about what it began. But the other person who's been here for all 156 episodes is our faithful friend and co and producer, not co-producer. He is the producer of the podcast, Tim Briggs. So, Tim, why don't I'm going to turn over to you to give us some thoughts as to what it's been like for these last three years.
We have not paid him to say anything, but there is money on the line.
That's right. well, Thank you. it has been an honor to be with you guys these last 3 years and 150 plus episodes. I think obviously what you guys talk about is applicable to me as a dad, as a husband, as a pastor. There's always a lot to glean from that. there may be some things that have made it into my sermons that you guys don't even know about. They came from these podcasts. Good things. Good things.
probably more than that is Honestly, just sitting around this table with you and getting to see you guys in action in your marriage, which is fun
and inspiring.
And so, that's often what I talk to Jenny about when I get home is just, you know, these are some life goals for us. We want to be like Jimmy and Suzi
in marriage. And just watching you guys interact and how you follow Jesus has been inspiring to me and has shaped my faith. And so probably more so than the content of the episodes, I would say just spending time with you guys has been what's stuck with me over these past 3 years.
Thank you. We appreciate that. It has been, as you know, an honor for us. Tim is does this in his with his skill and his intention to serve and we are just honored to be with him too. So it's his anniversary as well.
Yes, it is. And Gut, we should not to mention Gus because he's sitting at the table right now
under my chair.
Under your chair.
so let's go back three years ago when we got this idea. it really came out of our board at the time wanting you and me to speak together more often and I had to remind the board that's great for us to speak together and we enjoy speaking together but it only happens when people invite us to come and speak and so if they don't invite us we don't have any outlet to do this and then you had this idea.
Well, we, you know, we had been praying and I could feel this pressure of how how's this going to be? Because Jimmy and I are not, as we've said before, we are not marketing geniuses. We don't know how to market. And so, we've learned some things about how to get the word out, but I believe that the spirit of God just kind of laid it on my heart and Jimmy and I talked about it one morning and invited Tim into that discussion and thought, "Can we pull this off?" And I don't remember what our first episode was. I know that we were both kind of scared and a little nervous and thinking, hey, if you know there were 10, 15 people that listened, that would be outstanding. And it's gotten beyond 15 people.
Yeah. And it's interesting to me. we were sitting at this same table that we broadcast from having breakfast as I remember it and you said, "What about the idea of doing a podcast?" And my thought went to
some lengthy boring dull kind of conversation, but it hasn't been that. It's been
great
our thought of 10 to 15 minutes max of talking about life, talking about the things that we talk about anyway.
Yeah.
Just having conversation with you at the at this table and Tim's been invited in. Sometimes he's joined in with us and like you said, I it's amazing to me the number of people who have and people we didn't know
Yeah.
would listen to it. That's been exciting to get those
things from folks who live in other states who have listened. and have enjoyed it and maybe hopefully have found encouragement, challenge in their own Christian life by listening to it all.
And we've got a couple of friends, one I can think of in particular, who she sends out the link to our podcast like she was giving out candy at the door. I mean, it's crazy. She sends it out all the time. and so many of you have been an encouragement to us. I know a I hear from a lot of people that you really enjoy if you sat under Jimmy's leadership at Church at Charlotte that you really enjoy hearing his voice again. I mean, even the modulation of his tone and that is a really cool thing. But it's been a pleasure and it's also it's been sweet and there have been times when coming to do this podcast has been bitter.
Yeah. Because the title for the podcast which struggling well and like we said there's now as you listen to this one will be episode 156. You can because the way we set it up with the people that host this. you can go back and find all 156 episodes. So, I'm sure there are some of you who will rush right out.
That's a road trip. That's a road trip.
You'll rush right out and your next long road trip and listen to all 156 episodes and let us know how it goes. Yeah.
But in all seriousness, it's called struggling. Well, that's been a theme of mine for all the years that I pastored. It is how we experience life. It's how you and I experience life. And so, it's Not like a title cuz it was catchy. It's a title cuz it's real life.
You know, I think this is where it might have begun. And I don't think it was even a phrase at that point, but I remember when you became pastor and you were what 28 years old.
Y
and we knew nothing about what it meant to be in ministry. It just the way it all came together was hard and exciting and frightening. But I remember we were struggling in our marriage and you and I made the decision. We still had Sunday night services. You and I made the decision together that when you got up to speak, you were going to share with the congregation, which was 100 people, I think at the time, that we were wrestling and struggling in our marriage to ask for prayer and just for people to know where we were. And I will never forget the response to that. There were some people that said, "You're a mess. We can't stay here." And they left. And there were other people that looked at us and said, "Thank you. I feel like I can breathe."
Yeah. And I can remember one elers's response was, "You don't say things like that when you're the pastor."
And that's how I was raised. I mean, that was the whole the bent of Christianity, the tribe that I was raised in. You didn't talk about real life. You didn't have friends within the church. You didn't and I couldn't do that. I there's no way I could minister that way. And so, yeah. We got up and said, "Listen, we just need you to pray for us." We had just transitioned into the role of senior pastor and had not
had a great example set for us of what that life was supposed to look like,
right?
And so, you're right, we were struggling. And guess what? It wasn't the only time, and it wasn't just that one night that we were struggling. There was a season where I think we both had to learn more about ourselves and about what it meant to follow Christ and how you do that. I tell people all the time when I was a pastor, I didn't have it all together.
I was a fellow struggler.
Yeah.
On the road. And I just think that the church needs to be honest about life, needs to be honest about the things we wrestle with and struggle with. And so that's where the phrase came from.
So we want to thank you so much for listening, for sharing the link with your friends and your family and anyone else. And we want to thank those of you that support us. that is such a gift. It kind of shocking that people do, but we are nonetheless we are so thankful. And we want to do something which I think we're going to be able to do. I don't know, but we do have an email address.
It's in info@tandemspirituality. com.
And we have a little gift that we would like to do for you.
For the first five people that email info@tandemspirituality. com,
get a home-cooked meal by me. That's right. don't cook anymore with this. Right.
We've got baseball cap type things. They're trucker Richardson trucker hats is the technical type of hat. It is with a logo on the front that says struggling well.
So, we will send you if you give us you the first five to respond an email info@tandemspirituality. com. We will send you that your own struggling well cap.
And if only one of you replies then you will get five hats to give as Christmas gifts. So we are full service.
If we are full service but and if it's more than five sorry it's the first five and that's it.
There you go. We have one female cap left which is for if you have a if you make do a high pony or low pony I have no idea what that is. But we have one female cap. Really cool looking if you would like that left. And so we would love to do that. And there you go. Happy anniversary people.
There you go. Thanks. Thanks. for listening. We'll be back again next week with something that has a little more substance than this one did. Have a great week.