Welcome to the For the Gospel podcast where we provide sound doctrine for everyday people. I'm your host, Kosti Hinn, and I want to welcome our listeners on Apple, Spotify, and those enjoying this in our YouTube video podcast format. First of all, Merry Christmas! This is our last official episode of the year. It's Christmas Day when it comes out, but this was recorded prior, of course, and I hope that you and your family are having a wonderful Christmas day if you happen to be listening to this on Christmas Day, or if you're in the car or road tripping or picking back up where you left off in the new year. Merry Christmas. I hope it was an amazing or is an amazing time. I'm excited in this episode to take you behind the scenes a little bit of where we've been in 2023 and tell you about where we're heading in 2024. And as always, we tag that Lord willing. I want to share with you some of the remarkable things first that God did through your support in 2023. If you've never listened to one of our end of year episodes, we've been in ministry for about three years now, and I do one of these each year. You may enjoy getting to know a little bit more about the nuts and bolts of our ministry here for the gospel. And if you're one of our regulars, this episode gets you in the loop of all that you have been a part of and all that's coming up in the coming year. First, 2023 was our most effective year since we launched three years ago. Here's what I mean by that. Our goal coming into the year was to reach one million people per month. Now we didn't just make that number up. It was based on some of the prior data points and what God had done prior. And it also was involved with some of our goal setting and hoping we could reach more people and that the Lord would use our little effort. And after falling short of the 1 million per month mark for the first three months, God picked up the pace. So as of right now, recording this prior to Christmas, we've reached just under 12.1 million people this year so far. The December numbers aren't even in yet. And we've got a very nerdy spreadsheet. Some people have wondered how do you track your reach? You know, is it in an estimate? Or, you know, do you have your wives and kids watch every video 5,000 times to boost the stats? Well, let me tell you, our team is pretty nerdy and conservative. So no views are double counted. Everything is based on unique accounts reached. So these are actual individuals who are interacting with our content, not again, just some person who watched one of our videos 500 times. And we track everything across YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, Twitter, our website, our email subscribers, and we even added a Threads account this year. By God's grace, in 2023, through your support, we produced 184 unique videos. And over that period of time, our videos produced, our YouTube subscribers, and our views grew 142% year over year. Our content is being consumed in 185 countries. That's verified. We can track all of that. And what that means then is people are using and watching and sharing the resources that we're producing. But beyond just the numbers, we're hearing from a lot of local churches and pastors and Christians from not only in the US, but Canada and around the world who are able to use the resources in areas where maybe they can't produce the kind of media we do, and by people who are being strengthened by the content in their local churches. Ultimately, that's the goal. We always say it. We want to provide sound doctrine for everyday people. And I'm thankful that the Lord is doing that through this ministry and through your support. As we look to 2024, uh, we want to produce several new series of content that will remain a surprise for now. I'm getting a lot of that dialed in in the background. But I can tell you that they will meet some of the biggest needs in the church and in the culture today. I'm talking about major issues, major questions, and biblical answers that will guide people on those topics. What's incredible about the growth that we've experienced is that God has done all of this with a decreased budget this year. And here's what I mean by that. It's actually not a terrible thing. Our monthly gospel patrons have nearly doubled in 2023. A ton of you are jumping on board as monthly supporters. But while our larger gift donors have decreased, never once have we doubted that God is in total control. And there's a friend of mine that always says if God doesn't provide it, he doesn't think we need it. So we came into this year, and I'll tell you what, we saw that. We have big plans. We know what to do if God provides even more. But God literally helped the ministry reach millions of more people on a smaller budget, and that proved something incredible that we could maximize what we've already been given. And that fires me up. Reminds me of my days at Dallas Baptist University. Our baseball team was a D1 school, still is. But back then, a lot of the big time recruits would go to the University of Texas or Texas AM or Oklahoma or TCU or some other Big 12 school. And we were in Texas, which means, sure, there were great players around, but a lot of the big time players would go to the bigger schools. So we had to develop what we had and maximize our talents to compete. I remember my coach always talking about player development, player development. And that mentality trained me in a belief that we can always do more with less if we're diligent. And so I give glory to God for the amazing progress this year in our ministry, for our team that did so much more with less, and for the way that the Lord is teaching us continually that if we'll be diligent, put our hands to the plow, and get after it, he'll do even more than we could ever imagine. I'm thankful for that. Some of the most impactful resources include our forgiveness series, the Holy Spirit series on the podcast, along with our resources on Mormonism. We're also in the kindness of God and really the kindness of Dr. Steve Lawson and the Master's Seminary, able to film a series of videos with Dr. Lawson that target church leaders and pastors because, well, hey, we're everyday people too. And we wanted to add some more resources for pastors, and we've got some more in the pipeline for that coming this year. In addition, I just completed a series of amazing videos with Randy Alcorn on the new heavens and the new earth, eternal perspective. And by the way, one of the biggest improvements this year was adding video to the podcast. Maybe you've been following along this year and all you've known is the YouTube format. I even keep forgetting that this podcast and a lot of our featured content through teaching was audio only through the podcast during the first few months of 2023, and of course, before that, until our team came to me and said, Hey, you need to do video podcast, and here we go. So I have to admit, it's a little more work, but it has been worth it since so many of you we know use video resources and people are still able to enjoy this on Apple and Spotify as well. On top of all that, we did not slow down our video production. We crushed 184 videos produced, and those covered a wide variety of topics, along with articles, and so we are absolutely thrilled with what God has done. But as we say, we are pleased but never quite satisfied. And here's what we mean by that in our ministry circles. We're always pleased. It's an absolute privilege. You just sometimes wake up and pinch yourself and can't believe that God would allow us the privilege of doing this. But our satisfaction is only in Christ, and we're thankful for that. But we never want to wake up on any given day and think, you know, we've arrived. Wow, look at what God has done. Wow, look at the videos, or be overly impressed with ourselves or satisfied with ourselves. So we're always pleased with what God is doing and the privilege of us getting to do it, but we're never satisfied. When we're in glory, we can be done. But until then, we want to keep being diligent, waking up with the workmen mentality to be faithful stewards of all that God has done. On our budget breakdown, to the question, you know, what exactly does for the gospel do with the money that I give? Well, let me break some of that down for you. As of this year, we put 78.2% of all donations towards programming and production. That's our resources, our teaching series, uh, bringing in teaching fellows, basically all of our content production. 20.5% goes towards administrative costs. That's everything from our staffing, our insurances, our third-party accounting firm, uh, logistics, fulfillment, basically the business costs of running our ministry and our staffing. We are an actual 501c3. We have five staff members now. We've got a litany of moving parts that our beloved executive director, Brett Skinner, and our administrative team handle on a weekly basis. And I'm so thankful for them. Literally could not do what we do without them. Lastly, we have begun this past year to put 1.3% of donor dollars back into fundraising. We call this development. Actually, had a great meeting with a larger ministry, a very well-known and reputable ministry this year. And turns out all faithful ministries, and many of them in particular, uh, have development departments or take some of what God's provided and they pour it back into the ministry, whether that's uh providing free resources for gospel patrons, people giving towards the ministry, or connecting and fellowshipping with people to share about the ministry, ensuring that there is an attitude of gratitude and a programmatic way or a systematic way in which we show thanksgiving to our supporters. And I've got to say, on a personal note, I continue to be blown away at how God has brought people from all over the country and of course locally here in Arizona to support for the gospel. And it honestly tells us that he's the one doing it. And so, with all that, as far as reporting goes, you should also know that currently we hold uh platinum status with Guidestone. We sign up for that voluntarily. We submit a 990 form and our financial statements annually so that our donors and that third-party accountability firm see how our donor dollars are at work. This has always been important to myself and to our team, especially me since coming out of the Prosperity Gospel. But really, in any theological camp, I'm sure you know, I know, we've all seen it or heard about it. The way money is used is sometimes kept in the dark. I'd uh I'd rather not operate that way. And so if you want to know more, you can go to forthegospel.org. You can check out our give page, you can see our financials or even ways to partner with us if you feel compelled to do so. That's sort of the nuts and bolts of where we've been, some of the bigger God stories that God has done. Uh, lots of testimonies have poured in, and then the financial aspect of well as well. But let me jump into where we're heading in 2024 and break down some of our goals, and then we'll land the plane here with this uh Christmas New Year's episode. Our goals for 2024. Our team has strategic meetings every single year, and we use these to set goals to assess the ministry, and it's a pretty systematic process. We really want to look under the hood and be good stewards. And so we've set the continuous goals of baseline content. What I mean by that is we're gonna continue our strong weekly content schedule and add in additional videos. We're gonna still drop our podcasts on Monday, our reels are on Tuesday, our longer teaching videos are on Wednesday, blog articles are Thursday, and then podcast quotes and recaps are on Fridays. But we've added in this new element. My sermon content from our church, from conferences, from other places that I teach is now gonna be woven into the for the gospel video resources. Those won't decrease the amount of unique videos we produce. They'll only be on top of what we already are planning to produce. So it just basically means more being added in to our library of resources. Another goal is for us to produce special series that's multiple series on major issues that people are facing. Again, I mentioned this earlier. I want to keep it kind of close to the chest for now while it gets developed in the background. But these would be resources you can use for marriage, for relationships, for teenagers, for college students, and more. Really excited about that. We'll release those and promote those throughout the year. Pumped to tell you more in the future. Another goal is to produce masterclasses. One of my goals is to have a library of theological masterclasses that people can use. Think of any theological topic and having, you know, three, four, even five episode masterclasses that you could use personally with your small group, with your church. And some of those will specialize in, you know, apologetics and people coming out of false doctrine, but other practical things as well that just don't focus on that, but build up the believer, not just help people deconstruct and reconstruct from false belief systems. Another big goal of ours is to launch an annual conference. This one is budget dependent, but as soon as we cross a certain annual budget threshold, we're gonna add an annual conference. We're gonna host it here in Arizona. It will be during a beautiful time of year, not summer, so we can all come together and fellowship and be refreshed, enjoy solid teaching, get to meet you, get to connect with you, and have so many in the For the Gospel family connect with one another. Next, we want to develop a merch store or develop a bigger product selection. This one is pretty much by demand of so many of you. One of the highest demands has been for merch. People love the stickers, they love the hats, they love the shirts, but our team is working on adding high-quality items that would help you represent for the gospel in everyday life. We've already started to promote some of those. Maybe you've seen them throughout the Christmas season and with our giveaways. Get ready in the new year. There's going to be some really fun ones. We call this swag. We don't ever mean that in an arrogant or uh cocky or provocative way. It's just the nature of the times. It's just like wearing the jersey for your favorite team. For us, it's wearing or using products that represent the gospel and our conversation triggers wherever the Lord takes us. Our next big goal is to increase our operating budget as the Lord wills. We currently need a baseline budget of $442,494. Yes, that's the exact amount. That's our budget to operate the way we have been and hit a few of our new content goals. In God's kindness, we have already raised about 48% of that behind the scenes and through your monthly partnerships. Beyond that, we do have an expanded budget that's closer to the $700,000 range. And that includes additional staffing for production, for design, for conferences, for workshops, for development, website optimization, and adding administrative support for books, potentially self-publishing, as we want to produce some of our own resources as well with products and fulfillment, lots of moving parts in a ministry. We're going to always continue to do what we do, but we're also ready to add in larger initiatives as the Lord provides. And finally, one of the things that we establish and are really excited about is our ministry structure. Over the past year, we've had some great times mixing in Johnny Artavanis from Dial In. Y'all know we're very close. He's one of my dearest friends on planet Earth. And we got Date Night with the Woods launched, and that particular podcast has grown tremendously. And in God's providence, we started analyzing the ministries and our goals collectively and the fact that every one of us now pastors local churches. And we all have ministries that are going to operate best when we're leading out of our pulpit ministries in our local areas and focused on what God has called us to do. And so you will continue to see friends like Johnny Artavanis mixing in it for the gospel, myself over on Dial In with Johnny. But we're all leading our own ministries and stewarding them accordingly. For the gospel is led by myself, Brett Skinner, our staff, and our board here. And, you know, Tony Wood, for example, a good friend of ours, is in Orange County. He pastors Mission Bible Church. He'll anchor date night with the Woods on going to his local church. And Johnny will keep crushing as he has at Dial In and pastoring Stonebridge in Franklin. We're so thankful and excited to have gotten the privilege of helping the Woods start their ministry. And Johnny has been doing dial-in for a while. He's one of my best bros in ministry. And so we're always thinking of ways to support each other and serve Christ together while being faithful to Steward, what God has given us. And so our ministry structure is clearer than ever, more streamlined and focused than ever. And then even our partnerships with other ministries have been clarified and solidified. All in all, it's shaping up to be a more focused, more effective, and exciting 2024. And I'm thrilled because it seems like God is strengthening for the gospel for a strong future according to his will. As the year turns over, I just want to pause and say a huge thank you to everyone who has supported us, to everyone who has been sharing resources, to all of you who have sent in testimonies and sent the DMs and sent the emails or run into us somewhere and shared how the ministry has been impacting you. That is affirmation we thank the Lord for. That's transformation that we give the Lord credit for. It's all unto his glory. It's all for the good of his church, because none of us would even get to do this if it wasn't for his grace and kindness. And I want to communicate to you our ongoing commitment to steward this ministry faithfully with the theology we teach, also with the tone and how we communicate, and ecclesiologically and how we support the local church and encourage our contributors and our followers in their local churches. And then, of course, financially, as we steward what the Lord provides through you, our beloved and precious gospel patron partners. This is the Lord's work, and we are insistent that it always must be done the Lord's way. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all of you. Starting next week, our very first series of 2024 here on the podcast will be on biblical manhood. I have a guest who's a pastor. He's a former Navy SEAL as well. His name is Travis Allen. He's a dear brother. He's actually one of my original mentors when I first got saved, a story that few people fully know. And you will not want to miss these five episodes. We're going to run the table for all of January. If you're a father or you're a mother raising boys, or you're a young man yourself, maybe you're a teenager or a college student being shaped in your manhood, or you're a grandparent supporting the next generation. I've asking Travis some of the biggest questions about manhood. And a lot of those questions derive from people I often talk with about the subject. You don't want to miss it. I think it's going to be a great way to kick off 2024. Well, Merry Christmas again. Happy New Year. We love you. I'll be back next Monday with another episode. Let's live for the gospel together in 2024. We'll be back next Monday. We'll see you then.