← Prophecy Watchers
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- [00:00]
A
Greetings and welcome to Prophecy Watchers. I'm here today with Mondo Gonzalez and a special guest, Joe Hawkins. We have a big, big announcement to make today and actually we have a major problem that we really need your help with now. It's one of those problems a lot of ministries would like to have. We have too much content. We have more content that we can fit in our 48 page magazine. We have more content than our video editors can produce. We've reached a point where we're rejecting so much material, so much really great material from other writers, from other authors. People are sending us articles which are fantastic and every month I go through these and I have to figure out which ones fit in the magazine. Well, it's becoming an increasingly problematic issue for me because we're actually leaving our own staff writers by the side of the road month after month where they have things to say that, sorry, they don't fit in the magazine. We have all these other articles. So we're coming today to you to kind of figure out how you can help us figure out this problem. Wasn't too long ago I got an email from prophetic legend Terry James. And Terry recommended a young man by the name of Joe Hawkins, who's with us today as a tremendous writer and suggested we start including his writing in our magazine. Well, I reached out to Joe and Joe about six months ago began writing for the Prophecy Watcher. And he was writing on subjects that people are really interested in today, whether it's AI, the mark of the beast, UFOs. We discovered a like minded writer, someone who just fit in here tremendously. So after getting to know Joe and reading his articles, one day Joe came to me and said, Bob, I think I can help you with something at your ministry. There's a hole in Prophecy Watchers and I think I can fill that gap for you. And that gap revolves around something called Substack. And Joe has his own Substack page. It was unfamiliar to me, but Joe, welcome to Prophecy Watchers.
- [02:04]
B
Thank you, Bob.
- [02:05]
A
And I want to have you talk a little bit about what Substack is and how it fits into Prophecy Watchers.
- [02:10]
B
Absolutely. So yeah, I started a substack about six, seven months ago for my own personal writings and I was putting producing content weekly and putting that information out there and I would see other people that had content out there and they were just pushing it out there and people loved it, people loved to engage with it, people loved to read it and you could even listen to the articles. And that's one of the good things that I like about it because I could just put it on my phone and just listen to these articles. And as I would read through the Prophecy Watcher magazine and see all the great articles and have conversations with you, I knew that there was a lot of articles that were being left out based off of the information that you just gave everybody. And I said, well, why don't we try to put some of those articles on the sub stack and make sure that people have opportunities to see those articles and be able to get that information to people. So that's one of the things that we definitely can do with the substack for Prophecy Watcher. Make sure that we get these articles out there so that they're not left out of the magazine so that people can get this good information and get informed on the important topics of the world.
- [03:11]
A
How does a substack relate to the other areas of social media, whether it's Facebook or Twitter or any of these other avenues?
- [03:19]
B
And so the best thing about substack, and I'm sure that people are watching today saying, oh, this is another platform. It's just like YouTube. It's just like Facebook. Well, Substack is a little different than both of those. The biggest thing with Substack is you just give us your email. You can either go to the website, go to the substack, you could sign up, put your email address in there and. And those articles will be sent to your email directly. And you can read them directly in your email. You can watch the videos directly in your email. Not everybody wants to get on Facebook. Not everybody wants to get on YouTube, but everybody these days has an email. So if you have an email, you can get the information that we're talking about and the content that we're going to put out there.
- [03:58]
A
The really nice part about this is Joe has volunteered to do this, the whole thing for Prophecy Watchers. He's going to run and manage the Substack page. He's going to take all of our content and turn it into substack content. And you're going to be able to access this actually for free. You know, these articles, these videos, all the things in the overflow is going to come to you for free. Now, there's some other options that we have. And Mondo, you and I had a conversation here just a little while ago about ways to support Prophecy Watchers. There are a lot of ministries that have things like the Prophecy Partners. I know Dave Reagan has done this for many, many years with Lamb and Lion Ministries, where They've created people who want to support the ministry. So what's the best way for people to support what we do here at Prophecy watchers? Because we're such an unusual ministry and we have so many outlets and so much content. How can people help us?
- [04:55]
C
Yeah, I think that one of the things that we talk about all the time is just our desire is to get the gospel out to the whole world. And so God has blessed prophecy watchers in all the various ways. You know, with television program, again, we talk about all the time where we are. We are unique in the prophecy world. Again, we're not the only ones ever, but in the sense of we're on television, we're on all the various social medias, we have the print magazine, we got Roku, we got the Psalm 19 project again, talking about the glories of God and his creation and just all the different things. But the other thing that I think has been important and through the years, people have asked us again, why don't you have a prophecy partner program? And we're like, yeah, we know that's something that's important because we appreciate how people support us. We appreciate they have the same desire as we do to partner with us to get the gospel into the whole world. This is one of the reasons why I've done a lot of traveling lately with Billy Crone and others is. And seeing the gospel get to these places. Well, part of that we have a great relationship with those that support us. And one of the things that we really have wanted to do is to say, how can we say thank you? We have a lot of free material as, you know, free material all over YouTube, social media. But how can we say thank you to those that partner with us? And so this has created a great opportunity for us to come back and to say, listen, you know, again, if you join us, whatever, we want to say thank you for all that you do in helping us get the gospel around the world. And substack is very unique in providing the resources and the platform. I follow a lot of people on substack and I support a lot of people on substack, honestly, because I appreciate their efforts. So this whole thing has been coming along where this is going to be new for many people, and it's going to be an opportunity, I think, tremendously, to take all of our stuff and to put it in such a way to, again, to say thank you to those that support what we do.
- [06:45]
A
You know, it's really an exciting day for me because one of the things, if you follow our ministry that may you realize is we support the work of a lot of other ministries, of a lot of other authors. I think back to the early days of L A Marzulli and Ken Johnson and I could. Lee Brainard, I could go down a list of 50 people. And we're probably one of the few ministries that actually work hand in hand with all of these prophetic experts. And they all have their own area of expertise that not everyone has. And I like to think that. I like to think of Prophecy Watchers as kind of a church planting organization where we've taken a lot of people and brought them to our television platform. And most people don't realize we spend probably $50,000 or more a month just on television airtime. And most ministries don't have that. Most of the individual authors don't have access to a worldwide television audience like we do. And so it's kind of our mission to encourage these other people to help them build their ministries. And it's the same with Joe. We're helping Joe with his own personal substack page. And it's another area, another hole we're filling at the ministry. Now. I have to tell you about a special project that we started here a couple years ago. I had this great idea to create something that we called the Prophecy Watchers Prophetic Library. And the idea of it was to create a DVD study from an expert on every single prophetic subject in the entire Bible. And eventually we plan on having like literally hundreds, hundreds of DVD studies where people can. If you want to read from Mysteries of the Book of Revelation from Mondo, if you want to hear from Titus Kennedy, the archaeologist, about proof of the resurrection of Jesus, we have Gary Stearman's Rescued by an angel, his own personal UFO encounter, Gary's study on the mystery of the Ten Kings. There are actually 27 of these in the Prophetic library right now. And in all honesty, it's kind of a neglected part of our ministry where we really don't promote these that often. We just produced two more here just last week that are on the way. So there are actually 27 of these studies. I'm dating myself, but I remember the days of S and H Green Stamps where my mom would collect these grain stamps and then go to the grocery store and get volume one of some encyclopedia. It's kind of funny thinking back on it years later. My point is you want to collect all of these because this is going to make you a Bible expert, a prophecy expert. You know, people email me and Say, where did Gary Stearman ever get so smart? Where did Mondo get all this knowledge? Well, they got it, you know, by following 2 Timothy 2:15 study to show thyself approved unto God. So the Bible prophecy library that we have here is really a key part of our ministry and something we can see growing a lot more. So, Joe, with that in mind, I want you to talk about the options of how people can help us get started with this substack page, how they can support the ministry, what we're going to provide them. And of course, we know that option number one is totally free. They can watch the videos, they can read all the articles, more content than anyone could consume. But there are two other ways that people can help us.
- [10:08]
B
Absolutely. So the two tiers is you have a monthly and annual subscription or you have the premium Prophecy partner is what we call it now. Under the monthly and the annual subscription plan, it's going to be things like the prophetic library. All of those DVDs will be uploaded in there digitally for you to watch at any time that you would like to. We're going to have access to some of those overflow articles that don't make it to the magazine. We'll upload those into the substack for you to read them or listen to them. You'll have access to the digital magazine. Instead of you having to go search through your email to try to find the magazine that you got back in March, you'll have access to it right there directly in your substack and you'll be able to download it directly from there. And you'll continuously get those magazines added to your substack subscription every month as long as you continue to partner with Prophecy Watchers. Now, under the premium Prophecy partner, any of those conference videos that happen after the Prophecy Watchers conference, such as the ones that we have in Norman, Oklahoma, Colorado Springs, Orlando, Florida or Branson, Missouri, those videos are going to be uploaded into the substack for you to watch. Now, the good thing about it, about the substack, is it's unlimited. You don't have to watch. You don't have to wait six months, or you don't have a time limit of six months that will run out and then you no longer have to watch it and repurchase a plan to watch them again. You'll have access for a lifetime as long as you continue to be a partner.
- [11:39]
A
So in theory, someone could go back and watch every message from our last 10 prophecy conferences, is that what you're saying?
- [11:45]
B
Yes, Sir, Absolutely. Yeah. So they'll absolutely be able to get the chance to check out all of those messages. And as of right now, we have around 100 messages uploaded into the Premium Prophecy Partner tab, and those are from the Orlando Conference and from the Norman,
- [12:03]
A
Oklahoma Conference, and there are many more coming. And we're continually adding new DVDs to the prophetic library as well.
- [12:11]
B
Yes, sir. Absolutely. And they'll get access to all of that and anything that's new that's added into there once they subscribe and they sign up. Anything new, if they don't want to go to the Substack app, if they don't want to go to the website to watch it, they can get that email, open their email up and watch it, and read it directly in their email.
- [12:28]
A
Now, one of the really exciting things that I know you're excited about when we do our prophecy conferences, Mondo walks into my office and he says to me, bob, where's the Q and A? And I say, oh, I invited too many speakers. We don't have room for it. He says, bob, people love the Q&As. And, you know, we have the ability now with the Energizer Bunny here, you know, to get a group of people, Billy Crone, L.A. marzulli Lee Brainard, and get on a Zoom call and actually have these Q&As that are going to be available to the Substack subscribers, where they're going to be able to tune in probably at least once a month, maybe more often, whenever there's something, you know, where we can get the gang together. And of course, digitally and on Zoom, it's very easy to get people there without bringing them here to Oklahoma City. So how do you see that panning out?
- [13:19]
C
Yeah, we've talked about the various ways in which we can do that. And again, you know, our heart is to say thank you for those who support what we do and to say, hey, look, we're going to. I'm sure we'll have an opportunity to get Gary in there. You know, as you know, Gary's 87, so he's kind of slowing down a little bit. But nevertheless, there's so many opportunities to have other experts come in and just simply say, listen, we want to say thank you to those that support us, and we want to provide an opportunity for you to have, again, opportunity to ask questions personally. And so the goal is at least once a month to put out a link and say, hey, everybody, that's part of this. We're going to get together you have the opportunity to ask any questions, especially as we know things are happening so fast right now and it's good to have this. And so to me, The Q&As are not simply just for the conferences, but we'll be able to do that again at least once a month or as things, something pretty amazing happens and we want to get together again with our supporters and to share what's happening in God's world here.
- [14:22]
A
Now, are those actually going to be live? Those Q and A's, are those live?
- [14:26]
C
Yeah, those will be live. Yeah, they'll be live. There'll be opportunities where everybody will be able to have the link to come in and we'll have an opportunity for questions and stuff, but they will be live. Yeah.
- [14:37]
A
So how do people access the substack page for Prophecy Watchers? Where do they go to actually sign up to get free access? Where do they go to actually become a monthly partner? Where do they go to become a premium partner? Yep.
- [14:50]
B
So the first place that you can go to is go to the Prophecy Watchers website and there will be a banner on there for the substack. You can click on that. It'll take you directly over to the substack. You would enter your email address and select your level of partnership and you would immediately have access. The second option is going to prophecywatchers.substack.com and you would do the same thing. You would enter your email address and select your level of partnership. And of course, any of the partners that are currently on our email list, you're going to get an email from Prophecy Watchers with a direct link to the substack for, for you to select right there in your email and you can go there and sign up just as you were in the previous two.
- [15:31]
A
I can look back over the last 11 years since we launched this ministry. And my mother always used to say, as you get older and you come towards the end of your life, you can always look back and see that God was guiding and leading your steps. And God continues to open doors for us here. Joe Hawkins is just the latest door that he's opened. Had no idea who he was until six months ago, showed up on my doorstep with an offer to literally take over and help Prophecy Watchers manage this substack page. Mondo walked in here four years ago. We had no idea what we were getting. You know, an archeologist, an astronomer, a Bible scholar. Just God has continued to provide for prophecy watchers 11 years. He's blessed us beyond belief. We are a unique Ministry. I'm not sure there's another ministry quite like us. And what I like to say is we're not everyone's cup of tea. But you know what? We have a group of people, the people who work here, the people who are fellow prophecy watchers who support us. I think they realize that we're not here for financial gain. There's no jets here. There's no limousines here. There's no Lamborghinis here. You know, we have 24 employees here. Everyone from video editors to customer service to shipping department webmasters. People have no idea really how hard it is to run a ministry. And our goal, in all honesty, is to keep people out of the tribulation and to be a blessing to you. You have anything to add?
- [17:11]
C
No, I think the exact thing. We are very thankful for all that God has done. And to me, it's just this is in this season. It's about gratitude. It's about what God has done. And you have said that from the beginning, is, you know, from 2014. Look at what God has done in all this in such a short time. And we're privileged to be a part of it. And we also know and feel very strong that we're called for such a time as this. Again, as you mentioned, we're very unique. We're not the only ministry in the world, nor are we claiming that, but we are unique in some of the things that we discuss.
- [17:42]
A
And.
- [17:42]
C
And certainly we love the Bible first and foremost. The gospel is central to what we're doing. But we also realize that the world is kind of. Kind of strange. It really is. And so we get the opportunities to take these topics. I mean, here we are watching Congress talking about UFOs, the Congress talking about UFOs, but we're able to take any and all topics and run them through a biblical framework. What does the Bible say? And that is our heart.
- [18:07]
A
You know, our Christmas gift this year was Joe Hawkins. And Joe, we're grateful for you. In fact, I told you when I first met you that you were one of the best writers that I'd ever seen in our magazine. And I think what I really liked about you, you never asked for anything. You just continued to write. You provided us articles for the magazine. There were no demands. There was no monetary gain. You just enjoyed being able to share your thoughts. And I've said this to you before, but you really are a fantastic writer. And so thank you for helping us with Substack. I think the eternal rewards are going to go far beyond the temporary and we're excited to have you being part of this. Anyway, for Mondo, for Joe, for Bob and for Gary, you know who you'll see here on the site again here very soon. Hope you have a happy New Year.