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The Think Media Podcast
372: How to Start and Grow a Christian YouTube Channel 2025 (Ethically)
01:08:14
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- [00:00]
Sean Cannell
Hey, before we jump into the show, I wanted to give you a heads up that my free YouTube strategy class is available right now on demand@thinkmasterclass.com on the class, I reveal the one YouTube strategy we use at Think Media to generate over 330,000 views every single day. So if you're new to YouTube, this will help you start right and avoid mistakes. And if you're a YouTube pro, this training will help you multiply your your growth. This class is 100% free and you can watch it now on demand@think masterclass.com now let's jump into today's show. There is a massive opportunity right now for Christian content creators to share their message, expand God's kingdom. But there's also a lot of hidden dangers when it comes to creating Christian content and a lot of tensions. The tensions between humility and self promotion, ministry and business ambition and contentment. And we've seen some bad actors even in the Christian content space. And there's a lot of lessons and pitfalls that we want to avoid because ultimately we have this powerful tool of social media and YouTube. But how? With great power comes great responsibility. And so in today's episode, I am talking with Ruslan from Ruslan KD and Bless God Studios. He has almost 1 million subscribers across multiple different YouTube channels and brands. If you add up all of his different followers, he's done music, he has done merch, he has created products, he's got his own events, and he has learned a lot of lessons on the journey about what it means to pursue God, live a Bible based life, but also deal with the pressures and the different aspects of having followers, really having fame and learning what that is to be a Christian and navigate as a Christian content creator. Ruslan, welcome to the show, man.
- [01:58]
Ruslan
Thank you so much for having me again, Sean. I'm super excited to get into this conversation. I think this is going to be hopefully liberating and valuable for people.
- [02:04]
Sean Cannell
Yes. So I want to unpack, you know, some of the interesting things that happen in the Christian content creator world. I think this might be some surprising to some. On the outside, it probably becomes a pretty small world rather quickly, but for those listening that would aspire to maybe start creating content to get on camera on any platform, YouTube, maybe one of the other platforms. Is there an opportunity for Christian content creators right now still? And is there a need?
- [02:32]
Ruslan
I think there's an opportunity in the sense that I believe the niche is growing in the sense that there's more creators that are coming to the platforms. That are growing quickly. So I think of someone like my buddy Nate La Sala, who was a debate coach and his channel is taking off. Within the last year, he's cracked a hundred thousand subscribers. I think when we initially reacted to one of his videos, he was at maybe 10, 12,000 subscribers about a year and a half ago. He's well over a hundred thousand subscribers. Crushing it, right? Doing a great job. So I think there's opportunity in a sense, that there are channels that are growing fast and there's people that are interested in different types of content and different personalities and different levels of expertise. So I would say absolutely, it's growing and it's. It's a niche that I think is only going to continue growing as the macro trends are changing within society. There's a lot of people, especially after this rough SE season of 2024 and the election, all that kind of stuff, that there seems to be a shift that our country is going into a direction that we didn't expect. And then through that shift, people are kind of coming back around to God. And really, before they go to a church or they go to a Bible study, they'll kind of first check out thoughts about God and Jesus and Christianity online. And so I think there's also a shift because of that and it's growing and it's. And it's fertile right now.
- [03:46]
Sean Cannell
Unpack that a little bit deeper. What have you observed when it comes to maybe seeing the conversation about God shift here in the United States and even around the world and online?
- [03:56]
Ruslan
Yeah, well, I think foundationally we've came to the conclusion, I would say rather unanimously, that the new atheism movement is dead. The Richard Dawkins 20 mid 2000s movement made a lot of promises and thought that if we could just remove God and remove Christianity. It started as kind of like a movement against Islam, but then they said, well, Christianity is no better, and then they tried to remove it. And so the more you secularized America, the more goofy America got and the more you got terrible reactions to everything from children and B, you know, with identifying as different genders to biological men being competitive in women's sports, to the COVID response of 2020 and how silly that was in hindsight, shutting everything down. But then you had states like Florida generally open. You got places like Sweden generally open. And so removing God from society has not made anything better. If anything, it's made things worse and it's made the family unit struggle more. And I think people are just waking up and going, yeah, we tried the whole like pluralism, let's be politically correct, let's not talk about God, let's remove God from the institutions, remove God from fa, from the, from the schools. And look where it's gotten us. It deaths of despair are higher than they ever were. Self deletion is higher than it ever. Addiction. All these different things are on the rise and have been since the pandemic. And I think people just want something different, they want something new. And the pendulum is shifted and swung in the opposite extreme which anyone that has been walking with Jesus or, or practicing their faith for a while has been communicating, whether it's in like I was teaching in a small group Bible study, like that was my, where I got my chops right. And then that had me all the way to communicating on a Sunday morning of a fairly big sized church. Anyone who has those sorts of experiences and is willing to lean into the tension and the conversation is going to be in a, in a good spot in, in this climate, in my opinion.
- [05:46]
Sean Cannell
And there's been some notable mainstream voices and celebrities that have even converted to Christianity. Have you noticed that? And what do you think that trend is all about?
- [05:57]
Ruslan
Yeah, I, I think what, what happened was first people came to the end of a lot of the stuff. They were fed from kind of the mainstream narrative, leftist views of things. And that kind of dominated the zeitgeist, I would say 2012 through 2020. And I think as people unplugged from that, they said, well wait a minute, we know this stuff is goofy. This is, this, this just isn't right. We, we understand this isn't right. And not only is it not right, it seems like it may be malicious. It's not that these people over here are just stupid. They seem to have ulterior motives with some of this stuff and they seem to completely check out of reality from what the average person is going through. And then they said, well if there, if there's some malicious stuff happening, maybe evil is real. And if evil is real, maybe there's the inverse of evil which is good. And if good is real, objective good and objective evil. And if good is real, maybe there's a source for that good. And if there's a source for that good, then maybe that source is God. And maybe the way that society in the west has always been built through these principles from antiquity about this man named Jesus and this church he established that's gone on to do a lot of good in culture and in society, maybe there's something to that. And so that's kind of the, you know, I, I don't even know how to call it the. You could call it the Biden, you know, Biden to Trump to conservative leaning politics to Jesus pipeline. Like, it's a very interesting way that the country has shifted and this is on a macro scale. And I think that's a, that's a huge net positive.
- [07:31]
Sean Cannell
And so there might be some like maybe a Chris Pratt or a Russell Brand would be one who are some of the ones that were maybe surprising and some of these big platforms are actually being more vocal for God. I know JP Sears. It's interesting how long I've known him. He went, he went from kind of like a full new age perspective and exactly what you said, really the existence of evil and everything that happened in 2020. He first was like, man, Satan's real. No question. Evil is real. This isn't just everybody's neutral thing which actually kind of pushed him to God. I know you cover this on your channel. So what are, who are some of the other individuals that have been pretty outspoken about this?
- [08:14]
Ruslan
I mean, there's tons, I mean, okay, listen, think of anyone is going to. This is going to be weird illustration, but think of anyone that's gone from vegan to carnivore or gone from vegan to plant based. Okay? That avatar is usually going to have a shift in political views and a shift in religious views. So I know, I know folks right now that have gone, they were vegan, they were early vegan and then their views and their ideologies about the world were dark, even a cult like witchcraft. And now they've shifted over and they're Christian and they're professing Jesus and they're going to church every week and they're reading their Bible and, and obviously you have the Russell brands, you have the Jordan Petersons does seem to be exploring Christianity more. But then you have folks like Candy Ken, who I just went on his podcast. He was a pretty, he's a big tiktoker. He's a big YouTuber. I mean, you just talk about the avatar for someone with the purple hair and all, all the, the liberal, you know, cliches. He was that. And he's coming over. I went over to his house, we had a podcast, gave him a Bible. He had a lot of questions about Jesus. Kat Von D is another one that has been extremely outspoken about her faith. And not just outspoken about her faith. She made video of her baptism. Super cinematic. Small church. They moved to Idaho. They unplugged from the LA nonsensical Hollywood lifestyle, moved to, excuse me, Indiana and documented that, but didn't just get baptized. She then renounced all of the occultic writings in the books and the witchcraft that she was into publicly renouncing that. And so there are a lot of people that are kind of communicating these things at scale. That's shifting culture, I think, in, in a way that we, we just didn't expect it to go with people being more either overtly identifying as religious or at the very least, Jesus Curious.
- [09:58]
Sean Cannell
And what do they say? They actually say America's founding fathers, they weren't necessarily Christian, Right. But they were deists. And that's kind of where some of the conversation is interesting. Even Daily Wire, Jordan Peterson. Okay, so there's an opportunity, there is a need, there's a shift in the conversation. There's a, there's a movement here. And if somebo wants to start creating content, they want to, they're a Christian content creator. Break down though, maybe the paths as you see it for them. And what I mean is like, do I do a Bible study channel? Do I also maybe just do a channel about something else? And I am a Christian, Do I do a channel like yours? And what would be your recommendation for maybe someone figuring out their lane, their voice for what they make their channels about, whether on YouTube or whatever platform?
- [10:49]
Ruslan
Well, I would say one, you have to start with some degree of self awareness and say, do I have an interesting story that is mesmerizing and insane that other people want to tell? So I think foundationally, do you have that and, or do you not have that? Now there are people, there's a spectrum there, right? So I'll give you guys a creator that exploded on a couple different platforms and his content now is just generally Bible study. It's very, just simple. He. He doesn't speak on cultural events, but he has a crazy story. It's a creator named Johnny Chang and Johnny Chang, crazy gang background. He's a Asian cat, neck tattoos all over. He's been on Jubilee, he's been on a lot of massive YouTube channels, Vlad TV. And he just has a crazy story that even if you're not a Christian, you're curious about, right? And so the more people hear his story, the more they go, oh man, I want to hear more from this guy about how he changed his life around. We went from being in prison to getting out and doing prison ministry. Now that's a guy that can just do a Bible study channel. And people are like, yeah, man, you look the Part you look like you've been through some things, and I want to hear you talk in general. So Johnny Chang is, is, is. Is a great example of someone that just has a crazy story. The other end of, of that spectrum is someone that is an authority with a track record of communicating well and they want to get into the podcast space. So I think of Pastor Ed Newton from San Antonio. He has a pretty big sized church, but pastor has been a pastor for a while. He leads a big church and he has a lot of stories to tell. He's lived a lot of life. He's older. I think he's in his late 40s now. That's a different authority that he's operating under. And so someone like that can get in. And he, he kind of does a little bit of both. He has a podcast called, I think it's called trending, Talks about some current events. But he could also just do Bible studies and just do like, leadership development stuff. And he's, he's fantastic. I love Pastor Ed. So there's a, there's a, there's a kind of a spectrum there. And then the next layer of that is like one, do you have a story and, or an expertise? The next layer there is do you have time or do you have money? Do you have time to learn the ins and outs of the technology, the ins and outs of how to make a thumbnail, the ins and outs of how to edit a video, all of that sort of stuff, or do you have resources to hire the team to do the work for you? And that's a conversation people got to, you know, take inventory of. Which season am I in? If you don't have neither, you might be in trouble. And you might need to figure out very quickly how to develop a lot of good re. You know, skills and, and hyperfocus to develop whatever deficit you have in, in. In one of those two compartments. And so again, a guy like Pastor Ed can just have a whole team of people that work for him and work with him, and they produce his podcast. Tim Ross is another guy. He hired a team because he had the means, and they produce his podcast and they got everything going for him. There are teams out there who will do that sort of stuff. Made for you content. Then again, a Johnny Chang, someone like myself, we just did it ourselves. Johnny Chang still makes his videos primarily on his phone. I think he just got a little streaming set up. I just learned it all. I worked in a media team at the church. I just did it all myself. And I like being Hands on. I like working with my hands. I like knowing that if everything breaks, I know exactly how to fix my stuff. The Internet's crashing. If this isn't syncing up. I have a fairly complicated setup. You guys highlighted it on Think Media. There's a lot of things that are happening. I have a video switcher that I'm controlling from a stream deck. If anything crashes on my setup, I know how to fix it. And I like being able to work with my hands just in case I'm becoming too dependent on other people. Right. And so I think you also got to take an inventory there. And then I would say, what are you willing to talk about in the sense are you willing to have the conversation that's happening in culture, or are you okay with going the longer route and you're just going to talk about what you want to talk about and eventually people will catch up to you because you've been excellent and you've been proficient. There's a tension there. So there's kind of like three different layers that I think people need to evaluate and ask, where are they and what are they trying to do?
- [14:39]
Sean Cannell
Interesting question for you. What do you think the definition of a Christian content creator is?
- [14:43]
Ruslan
That's a great question. I think a Christian content creator is someone that's going to be unapologetic about being a Christian. They're unapologetic about leading with being a Christian. There's a lot of Christians you and I know that are great content creators and they're Christians, but they don't lead with that. Patrick, but David, a mutual friend of ours, valuetainment. He's a Christian, goes to church, open about it, but he doesn't lead with I'm a Christian content creator. Right. He's a business guy. He's a conservative guy. He leads with that. So I think someone that is willing to lead with, guys, I'm Team Jesus. I don't care what you think about that. I don't care if that makes you uncomfortable. I'm Team Jesus. I'm unapologetic of being Team Jesus. So I would say that's another one. And then I would say the content generally comes back to some sort of Christian theme, if not overtly preach the gospel in every single video. It has to generally come back to something loosely connected to scripture or biblical living. That again, we're not trying to suppress it and hide who we are.
- [15:33]
Sean Cannell
I wrote a list and let me know if you have any more for this to go a little bit deeper in the opportunities and the niches for creators to maybe dive into. What's interesting is you could go personal finance. Like Larry Burkett would be an old. I mean you could say Dave Ramsey, but I don't. I mean, kind of. But I don't think he leads. Larry Burkett was like Bible based finances. Okay. You've also got discernment ministries. We could come back to that later. You make your YouTube channel about calling out false teachers.
- [16:04]
Ruslan
Sure.
- [16:05]
Sean Cannell
Content about prophecies and conspiracies and if you threw in end times, that's huge.
- [16:10]
Ruslan
Yep.
- [16:11]
Sean Cannell
That's good. Then content that directly help helps you grow, which in your faith, that could be Bible study channels, essentially. Maybe your mission is to make disciples. Okay. You also could go videos about theological concepts, apologetics, huge niche debate debates on college campuses, or just breaking down apologetic concepts. You also could go kind of like maybe facts about Christianity. What is that? Reformed Zoomer channel.
- [16:42]
Ruslan
Yep, yep.
- [16:43]
Sean Cannell
Really good.
- [16:44]
Ruslan
Redeem Zoomer.
- [16:45]
Sean Cannell
Redeemed Zoomer. Yeah. And breaking down maybe explaining things. But you could also go. There's a lot of shorts that also maybe sometimes tap into content that's going to get a lot of views about like the nephilim and stuff like that. But like the short just is like kind of facts. Did you know about this part of the Bible? Did you know about that? And then there could be stuff that's also like maybe Christian perspect, commentary on celebrities, drama, politics, current events and trends. These are all like different categories. Do you have any to add to that or any thoughts about someone listening about maybe thinking about what their options are or what they might do best at?
- [17:24]
Ruslan
You could also add a category of like Christian politics, Christian nationalism, Christian politics, Christian worldview. I mean, that stuff has been sort of hot with the election season. I think a opportunity that's going. And this is. I don't know how this would work from a Christian standpoint, but I think whenever there's the opposition in the White House, you're always going to have the inverse of that take off. So I think what you're going to see right now, and this is not Christian related, but you're going to see channels like the young Turks have a huge thrust of views of people who are in the opposition but willing to call out their own. Their own side. So you're going to see those types of channels exploding, I think right now because now, you know, the conservatives have the. The House. And so I think how you navigate that Christian politics could be interesting.
- [18:08]
Sean Cannell
Yeah, that's a great list. And so that's like different types of content. From being a Christian content creator, people could tap into. There is some critique of the Christian content creator niche. From your perspective, what is your experience? Like, what would people maybe not know about, if, if they're listening to this, who knows, they actually might know Alan Parr and they might follow you, they might follow Mike Winger and whoever else and. But is everybody get along? Is, is it a, a giant group of unified loving people or is there some challenges and tensions that come within this niche of Christian content creators?
- [18:47]
Ruslan
You know, I would say the niche gets along in as much as there is theological charity, if that makes sense. And so I have friends of all theological persuasions. I have friends that are super Calvinist, I got friends that are super duper Pentecostal, charismatic demon slayer types. Right. I got, so I got friends on, so I, I tend to get along with, with, with everybody generally speaking. And I think if you can hold the difference between what are open handed and close handed doctrines, I think there's a lot of opportunity for people to get along and to, to be in relationship together. When, when people are genuinely looking for, hey, I'm willing to be in relationship, I'm willing to come to different events, conferences, build relationships, be with people in person. There is a lot of camaraderie that happens. I think when it doesn't happen is when it's the byproduct of strong theological separation. Right. So when the Reformed guys are like, there's no way that a Christian could be demonized and the demon, you know, the guys that are doing deliverance, like what do you mean? We see Christians demonized all the time. That's when there could be tension. And a lot of that in my opinion can be smoothed out by just having conversations behind the scenes to better understand what the other side is saying instead of straw manning each other. And so I think the more conversations happen, I've actually been refreshed by how much inter denominational dialogue that does happen in these circles. And yeah, I don't, I don't know of a lot of like behind the scenes beef like that. You know, there's a couple people that, that could be kind of like, ah man, some drama there. Not going to really collaborate with that person, you know, keep him at an arms thing. But generally speaking, people I would say are very friend, way more friendly than the Christian hip hop space or the Christian music space. Let me tell you. That was way more contentious and a lot of competition. And I don't see my fellow Christian creator content colleagues as competition. I see them as opportunities for collaboration. I see them as folks who are trying to further the gospel. And if someone doesn't like my videos, maybe they like one of their videos and maybe I could send people to another channel that I'm reacting to that's, that's up and coming to give them some, some love. You know, that's kind of how I've always viewed it.
- [20:58]
Sean Cannell
I love that perspective. And I am curious. How about in the comment section? Or how about, have you had any pushback? Have you found that if there's a mentality. I asked this question for the creator that wants to start or wants to scale, if they can be prepared for maybe support, be prepared for unity, be prepared for collaboration, but also maybe be prepared for pushback. And this idea of maybe negative comments, have you experienced any of that?
- [21:26]
Ruslan
Oh, yeah, absolutely. I mean, listen, Mike Winger was the one that told me, like, you have to understand that comments on YouTube are generally going to drift against whatever the video is about. And if you're okay with that, then you'll be fine. So it's almost like the expectation is if I'm going into a video that's been up or a video that's mega viral, that that's performing well, there's going to be pushback in there. And, and there's a difference in some people can push back against the ideas without personally attacking you, and other people just don't care. Don't care. Oh, they'll, they'll attack you. They'll try to make fun of you, they'll troll. That's the name of the game. So comments. I think we need to have healthy boundaries with comments, meaning that we need to understand that comments are going to drift. Negative comments are anonymous on YouTube. It's not like Instagram or Facebook where it's linked to an actual personal account. And if you're okay with that, then you have to figure out your relationship. Either you have to stay composed if you're going to go read comments, or you read comments when a video first comes out to kind of gauge what is my core thinking about this video. Because usually YouTube will work your. Once you build an audience to the core first. And those first set of comments kind of are important to me because that's like those, like my day ones, those are my, that's my tribe. And then once a video goes further and further out, I, I just check out, I stop reading comments. I might like open up the YouTube Studio app and if I see the first couple comments highlighted, I might, I might glance at those or YouTube does a good job of filtering out comments from bigger creators. So I'll see it like a bigger creator with, you know, subscribers comments. YouTube will show me that. And I, I'll look at those from time to time just to see like, oh, who's watching? You know, oh, this guy. I love this guy's channel. I reacted to his video. He came and left a comment. Oh, how cool is that? So I, I, I'll check there. But generally speaking, yeah, people got to be very careful with having some boundaries with the comment section.
- [23:05]
Sean Cannell
I think one of the things when someone looks at some of the content that's created in the Christian content creator space, there could be the accusation of clickbait and there could be the accusation of also jumping on celebrity pastors and things like that. I know for you, you have touched on this content. I believe you do it in a classy way. But there was even a video called the problem with Christian YouTube by track stars. You commented on it and they pinned your comment and you talked about sort of actually making a conscious effort to make net positive content. Even the numbers of videos you were posting for those that are maybe seeing that there's a time and place to engage in cultural dialogue and even biblically saying, you know, I was actually listening to my Winger breakdown, you know, people being restored to ministry and saying, if there is actually a very public person that's had a very public issue that it actually scripturally should be publicly talked about. So there's really a right scriptural way of that there being a time and place for it. I think there's maybe also the other extreme where it could just devolve into drama type of content. What do you, what is the tension in your perspective for that and what have you learned for those that are maybe wrestling with that tension of clickbait as a Christian?
- [24:20]
Ruslan
Well, I think on a macro level, there is a time and a place to call out and address certain public shortcomings. I think how that's done is super important. And so you, you mentioned Mike Winger. I think Mike Winger sets a good precedent that he could say some very firm things to some very public people, but do it still in a gentle way where his temperament is different. And I found myself that I am not. I, I, when, when, when I do speak into that, I can tend to kind of roast and like make light of stuff, which isn't always helpful when you're talking about like a serious topic. And so I've gotten to a place where I'd rather just leave that up to a Mike Winger and I think he does a great job of it. And I'll defend his right to do that because I think it's helpful. We've intentionally veered off of engaging with whether you would call that like discernment ministries or call out videos, because I just don't think it's generally helpful in as much as the perception of the church because the reality is when scandals happen, it's the small, small, small percentage of churches that are going through this sort of stuff. And when I'm highlighting the negative things that distorts people view and they think this is everything. This is all the time this stuff's happening and it just, it just isn't. And I didn't feel comfortable, nor did I think it was good for people's soul to make content that just highlights the negative aspect. So we've pulled away. We still will hit a Benny Hinn video here or there. Like I think we talked about that with when Benny Hinn went after Mike Winger, really as a defensive Mike Winger. We'll hit those topics here or there. But generally speaking, I've just backed away from needing to wake up and find something wrong with something a pastor said. It didn't feel good to make, didn't feel good to, to. I don't think it was servicing my audience well. And I think that there is a way to do it. I, it's just not for me to do it. And I'd rather highlight goodness and beauty and things that I find great instead of highlighting things that are bad. And, and even if I'm going to say something that's negative, I'll first package it on the back of. Hey, here are five things this person said that were good that I actually appreciate. And again, there's other channels that do it. There's other channels that do it. Well, it's, it's just not for me. And I think it's better to talk about ideas than about people, generally speaking. Again, there is a time and a place for it in terms of clickbait. Listen, I think clickbait is an interesting title because Topic. Because what do you even define as clickbait? Are we talking about misleading, you know, misleading titles and thumbnails? Well, YouTube is going to deprioritize that. If you make a title and a thumbnail with something that's just completely false, you're going to get nuked in the algorithm for that because the watch time is going to go down. People are going to figure it out. You're going to get Ratioed. But if you're saying, hey, I want to find something intriguing about this video that is going to get someone to ask the question about what is this? I think that's just great titling and packaging. That's what CNN does, That's what Fox News does. Sometimes I even will read a headline and be like, man, that's a great headline. Like, I watched, I was on CNN the other day and it said, apple discontinues this essential product that people use. And I was like, what? What is this? And I clicked into it and it was the cable to use the aux cord from the old, you know. You know, Apple went over to USBC and I was like, what a great title. Like they got me. It's completely irrelevant to me. I have a USBC phone but they stopped selling it. And the way they package that title, I was like, this is a great title, you know, So I think that's media. Like media is the Netflix trailer that plays the auto plays when you're scrolling through. Netflix is trying to get you to click into the video. So I think sometimes people will confuse clickbait with good packaging and good titles and an intriguing conversation. And I think that's a bit disingenuous and short sighted.
- [27:54]
Sean Cannell
In just a second, I want to get into these areas. I think there's like five areas of tensions that Christian content creators can deal with in terms of money, mindsets, ambition, self promotion. But I want to touch on one of the other things. There's, there's kind of a thing happening right now called Christian content farms. And a content farm is a channel or a network of channels that churn out massive amounts of low quality videos with often little regard to originality, accuracy or viewer experience. Perhaps one of the biggest ones, it seems to be happening with a lot of apologetics, content where it'll be like Christian apologist dunks on atheist, on the fact that God is real or whatever. And they'll take these clips from universities or take these clips. And I guess the idea of calling it a content farm is that perhaps 90%, 95%, 97% is just the video playing. And then at the end they're like, yeah, like, see what he said? Pretty cool, huh? All right, click subscribe. And so what's your thought about that space? I mean you're, you know, a lot of people in this space and that's. Yeah, what's your thought about Christian content farms?
- [29:10]
Ruslan
Yeah, you know, again, we get a lot of crap for talking over the videos and stopping the videos and adding Commentary. Why can't you just let the videos play through? And it's very annoying because I don't want to be a, a Christian content farm. It's that simple. I think there is a downside in this in a very practical sense where you just become a commodity. You're just a clips channel for other people's content. And that is not how you build a long term audience, that is not how you build a long term platform, that is not how you build a long term business. And so I think some of it is very short sighted to say the least. Right. You become an aggregate, a curator alone. And I know some of these guys, I'm friendly with some of these guys. I've had some of these guys on my channel. I think they're good guys and I think they aren't necessarily counting the cost of what it means to be a creator versus curator. Someone that is adding value and insight versus just clipping stuff up. I don't think they know. I think from their standpoint they're probably just doing their best to give people content that they find interesting by packaging it well and adding a little bit of insight at the end of the video. I don't do it. I don't like to do it. I don't think it's helpful to do it. I think we've intentionally gotten dragged by our own comment section for not doing it. And so I think I'm always thinking long term. I mean before you and me went into this podcast, we were talking long term. What is the lot was a 5 year, 10 year, 20 year play for what I'm doing. And that just is like a very short sighted approach. And I'm okay with not growing as fast as some of these other channels if that means that the people here actually are building a connection and a relationship with me through this amazing platform called YouTube.
- [30:50]
Sean Cannell
This episode is brought to you by Streamyard. Streamyard is our go to platform here at Think Media for live streaming to Facebook and YouTube and for recording our video podcast. It has an incredibly easy to use interface for built in branding, transitions, text, lower thirds and seamlessly bringing on guests. And they just added an awesome new feature called Local Recording. This allows you to take the quality to another level by separating out your audio and video from your guests, giving you more control over your content for later use. This feature is perfect for video and podcast creators. And so to get a special deal on Streamyard right now and to see all the features that are included, just go to stream with think.com that is streamwiththink.com I think there's also probably levels to it because I think it could be so low effort. As we described it set. 97% of the video is just the clip, and then you just sort of outro it. But then it also could be elevated to compilations, could be really video essays where many things are woven together. Because would you. Do you think that actually being a curator, but at a higher level, could actually be your main play because of the level of quality you bring to it and maybe the original, the remixing you bring to it? That's not just the lazy content form Farm style.
- [32:20]
Ruslan
Yeah, absolutely. I, I think there's levels to it, like you said. And so we curate. We just did a video on one of my favorite films, Momento, and connected it to scripture, told some of the background story, pulled some of the videos of Christopher Nolan, explaining how the timeline in Momento works. Right. So there's a, there's a level of curation, but there's also connecting it to scripture, just connecting it to the themes of, of Scripture. And so I think there's a way to do it. That video specifically was more of a video essay approach, slash reaction style. And then we connected it to scripture towards the end. So I think there is a way to do it. But to your point, you can't just let a clip play all the way through and say, huh, yeah, huh, yeah. You, you have to cut away to something else and you have to have some sort of cultural reference, tell a story, do something else, in my opinion, to level up as a curator.
- [33:10]
Sean Cannell
So I got these five areas, and I think this is probably the most important part of the conversation because a lot of the people we talk to, Christians are mission driven. They want to fulfill the Great Commission. They want to get into YouTube. They also see opportunity. Can I make money doing this? And can I make a difference? But there's a lot of mindsets in particular that Christians deal with. And I, I wrote down five of them. I'm sure there's more, but these are really like tensions that they can struggle with. The first one I wrote down, and I'm curious, your commentary on these is humility versus self promotion. So Christians value humility and putting others first. However, YouTube rewards those who essentially effectively promote themselves and their content. And some critics of maybe you, or I might say, you know, look at you, you're so self absorbed. How could a, how could a Christian even be a YouTuber? How, how is it even possible to be a YouTuber that's not humble and so how do you wrestle with that tension?
- [34:14]
Ruslan
Well, I think humility isn't burying the talent or the insight or the wisdom you have. That's not humility. That's, that's something totally different. I'd say that's like a false humility. If you've gone through things and you have wisdom and you have insight and you, you're not humble by withholding information for people. Right? So when me, right before you and I got on this conversation, we were talking strategy, we were talking business, and you were giving me insight of amazing wisdom you have from your resources and your information that you shared with me, it wouldn't have been humble of you to be like, I don't know, man, I got, you know, the humble thing is to actually say, hey, I know you're thinking about this, Ruslan. Have you thought about this? And by the way, I talked to this person who's done what you're thinking about doing, and this was their insight. That's humility. Humility is actually serving people. And so if someone has gone through some things, if someone has some expertise, if someone has accomplished some things, it's not humble to not offer value to people. It's the opposite. That's false humility. And so I think that humility, between humility and self promotion, I think you have to ask yourself, what are you promoting at the end of the day? Right? Because I genuinely am not trying to, I don't need to be any more famous, I don't need to be any more recognized. I don't need anyone else to walk up to me in the grocery store when I have my 3 year old and ask for a. I don't need those things. That's not what's driving me. I don't need self promotion. I'm genuinely here looking to help people make the practical steps in their relationship with Jesus. And I'm willing to do whatever I can to, to, to, to care about the things they care about, to drive them to the life experience that I have. And, and to me that is driven by Kingdom mindset, not one of, of self promotion. Because I genuinely don't care. I, I, I really don't care. Like, I don't need any more attention. I, I, I, I, I'm very well fulfilled in my marriage. I have amazing friends in my real life. I don't need the validation of other people. And so I think that that can become a heart thing really quickly. And I think what people tend to do is they 10 they tend to think they're mind readers and they 10 they tend to think because someone is excellent, putting things out that other people find valuable, that it has to be about their ego. And that's just not always the case. I think the best creators, the best entrepreneurs, the best inventors are genuinely thinking about other people and how they can help solve their problems. And that's, that's. You don't become successful by being self absorbed. You become successful by being other focused and solving other people's problems. And then as a byproduct, they reward you with their time, their money, you know, their interactions and their support.
- [36:49]
Sean Cannell
That's deep. A lot of people do take up the assignment of being the pride police. And oftentimes, if that's the lens they're viewing for, I think they got to be careful. It could be projection. Actually, they're. Just because you don't have a platform and you don't have a following doesn't mean you're actually not full of pride. And you're projecting your own ego and maybe your own pride on somebody else who very well could be coming from a place of service. And I. Basically what you're saying here is it's a heart issue.
- [37:15]
Ruslan
Yes.
- [37:16]
Sean Cannell
It's a motive issue, and it's a mission issue. Jesus was ultimate humility, but he actively made his ministry known and he interacted with people, taught publicly, even sent his disciples out to spread the word. But it was also, I mean, he's our ultimate example. If we want to be Christian content creators, we want to be like Christ. And there was times when he was like, man, I got to get up early and pray. Or I actually need to take a break from the crowds to perhaps, you know, always. He was tempted in all things, but never sinned. So maybe seeing. I know for my own journey, it's like I could. I. In fact, I encourage my team, those around me, my wife, hey, I got blind spots. I. I do not just want. Yes. People all around me. If, if you feel like my ego's blinding me, if I got blind spots, man, do I need to take a break. These are tensions to be managed, not problems to be solved. And somebody like you or I also might get to a place where maybe the ego grows a little bit big. The point is, like, to shrink it down, not to condemn the individual. Like, oh, that's what they cross. You know, you can never. Like, this is going to be a fluctuating thing, don't you think?
- [38:19]
Ruslan
Yeah, absolutely. And I think ultimately how we mitigate ego is by service. Right. I learned that very early on like, it's difficult to be proud when you're trying to serve people. It's difficult to be proud when you're serving in your local church ministry and you're in the nursery with the one year olds. You don't get anything from that. You're literally there to serve. And so I think service is a way to mitigate some of that ego, some of that self promotion. And I do believe YouTube can be that and building a business can be that. But I also think there's something good and healthy about finding opportunities and people to serve in our real day to day lives. And that I think is a, is a great way to mitigate ego and pride.
- [39:03]
Sean Cannell
The second one is ministry versus business. Another big tension would be making money versus ministering for free. I actually did a Q and A series and I was uploading these videos on the Think Media channel, not this podcast channel, and I just answered someone's questions of how to make money. As a Christian content creator. I was surprised that the video actually is taking off to quite a bit, quite a bit more than I imagined. It was just a Q and A video. And sure enough, the comments are super interesting. A lot of gratitude, a lot of thank you so much. This has been very insightful. This is very helpful. But then also plenty of Christians dropping verses. You know, the gospel is free. What are you even talking about? And with empathy, I understand where, you know, where they're coming from. Because when we throw out Christian content creator, well, are we talking about charging for the gospel? There's some stern warnings about that versus YouTube pays us for views we could be talking about. And so there's a lot of, I think this one's tough for people. And I think money mindsets get people really trapped and stuck. What do you think kind of this tension between having a ministry on YouTube versus running a business, making money versus ministering for free?
- [40:20]
Ruslan
Well, I think I always point people to 1 Corinthians, chapter nine, which Paul is writing. Excuse me, I think it's 2 Corinthians, chapter nine. Paul is writing and he's talking about this tension and he says something really interesting. He says, do not, you know, a worther is worth a worker is worth his wages, right? Do not muzzle the ox. And then he goes on to say something very interesting. I think it's in verse 11 where he says, if we have sed spiritually among you, are we not entitled to reap materially among you? Right? And so Paul was bivocational, he was a tent maker. But his 10, the tension he was living in was very clear that, listen, these other apostles, Peter, they're bringing their wives on the road with them. And in principle, if we're sewing spiritually, we are allowed to reap materially even though he worked a job. And so I think that that passage is huge in terms of the money mindset aspect. Now that's about overt ministry. Paul is planting churches and is saying, even though I work a job, I'm still allowed to, to reap a material harvest. People really struggle with this passage. And whenever this, this comes up in the comments, I just said, just go read First Corinthians chapter 9 and tell me what you think about it. Go sit with it. I want you to really sit with it and process it. And I, I love that passage. Now I also think there's a difference between selling the gospel and selling a Christian product or a Christian service or Christian T shirt. Chasm of difference. The Gospel is free. You can walk into any church and get a Bible. You can, you could, you could pull up the gospel, you could read about the gospel. But a hundred dollar leather bound study Bible is not the gospel, right? That is not one thing. You don't need a hundred dollar study Bible. You don't need a bless God prayer journal. You don't need a occupied till I come hoodie. You don't need our leadership planner. You don't need our 60 day devotional to walk you through the God, the narrative of scripture, 35 days in Old Testament, 25 days in a new test Testament custom. Those are not needs, those are not the gospel. Those are resources and they could help you. A Christian conference is not the gospel. So the gospel is absolutely always free. And we talk about the gospel all the time, but we're not charging for the gospel. The gospel is not what's being monetized, right? From a gospel driven worldview. We are trying to create products and services that help people grow closer in their relationship and mature as Christians. Those are not one and the same. And in the same way I've taken Financial Peace University by Dave Ramsey to grow and mature in terms of handling my financial resources and my means and learning how to budget better. In the same way, I've taken the men's skills class, my wife has taken a women's skills class at our church to work through our traumas and our psychology and all kind of stuff. We paid for those courses. Those were not the gospel. But man were those great investments for our maturity. We prayed for premarital courses, we prayed for premarital conferences, we bought premarital books. That's not the gospel. And so I think people, one, are making a categorical error and two, don't even understand what First Corinthians chapter 9 lays out, which is a very clear succinct demonstration of this exact principle.
- [43:17]
Sean Cannell
It is very clear. And you, Paul might even be referencing Jesus in Matthew 10:10 where he actually talks about the fact that a worker minister should be paid. He says, you know, when you're out on the road, you should be fed and you should have a, a roof over your head. And ministers shouldn't be greedy or preach to get rich, but it's okay for them to expect basic needs and then that's further flushed out in the New Testament. It's interesting. This is a big one that trips people up. And then what is your thought when like do you think you have a ministry or do you think you have a business?
- [43:49]
Ruslan
I think that I minister through running a business. That's how I've always felt. And I think it's no different than a person who has a service that they're providing. Planning center is a service that's provided to churches. Is it a ministry? Is it a business? CCLI licensing for songs, worship songs. Is it a ministry? Is it a business? Christian publishing, Is it a ministry? Is it a business? I think a good Christian is going to minister through their business if there's applicable value to Christians to it. And I think a good business, that's that, that a good, a good ministry is going to have good business principles. You're going to have to keep good books. You're going to have to file your taxes correctly. You're going to have to make sure you're complian plan. You're going to have to make sure you have payroll. You're going to have to make sure that in my opinion you're paying people a generous livable wage. You're taking care of people, you're giving them health insurance. And so I don't, I don't think it's an either or. I think it's a false binary in my opinion. So yeah, we don't see ourselves as a non profit. We've never said we're non profit. We, we don't ask people to give to us like a non profit to make charitable donations to us. We don't ask, we don't give tax deduction deduction donations. But I believe that we minister all the time through the videos and through the products and services we make. And so, but I would say no, there are actual ministries, there are actual nonprofits. There are actual churches. We are not one. We've never pretended to be one. And I honestly have zero desire to, to be one. It's a different business model. And that, that has a business model, by the way. There is a business model for that which is, hey, we're going to give you these things and in exchange give us donations. That's a different model. I don't want to go off of donations. I actually want to give people a product that they can get and, and use and go, wow, this blessed me, man. I love this. I want to get this for a friend. I want to tell other people about it.
- [45:31]
Sean Cannell
Out of your. You're really well connected in the Christian content creator space. This might just be a guess, but do you know of peers of yours that are running this as a non profit? And what would you say is the percentage between businesses and non profits? Christian online ministries?
- [45:46]
Ruslan
I say about 50. 50 right now. There's a lot of guys that have both. There's folks that have both. So they have actual things that they do that is more ministry centered. They're giving away their offloading money. They're giving to other ministries, other missionaries, and, and they also collect a certain number of revenue donations through that. And then they also have a, a for profit arm. There are folks that are 100% ministry and everything is set up as a nonprofit. And there are folks that are set up completely as a business or S Corp or llc. Um, and, and there's, I mean, there's even guys that are like completely just that. No, no business structure. They're just their own Social Security and paying outlandish amounts in taxes, which I go, you, you guys got to fix that. That's just dumb.
- [46:29]
Sean Cannell
All right, number three, ambition versus contentment. Now, I'm excited because you got a book coming out in 2025 and. But this one's tough because there's the struggle is the ambition to grow a channel and reach more people can clash with this Christian value of contentment. Uh, there's a fear that ambition might lead to pride, envy, a focus on worldly success, and a lot of people on the sidelines will critique. Why isn't it enough, Ruslan? Well, you just want more. What? You just, you want worldly success. Like ambition is not godly. What would you say to that?
- [47:05]
Ruslan
Well, one, I would say from a healthy contentment, can there be a healthy launching towards a godly ambition? So it's actually from me learning to pay off all of my debt Decrease all of my expenses, live on way less than I need to, decrease my burn rate. Live a very, very, very simple life. When we went through our debt free journey, when we saved six months of living experience expenses, my wife has a stay at home mom. We lived a very, very, very frugal, simple life. And it's from that contentment that we can be launched into doing other things. Because I'm my metric and my value and my success isn't measured by the external validation of numbers or fill in the blank, right? And so I think contentment is a great launching pad in my opinion. I think, I think if you don't have contentment and you're not okay with where you are, it's going to be very difficult for you to grow and manage the next level. And I think there is a godly ambition and it's laid out in First Thessalonians, chapter four, where Paul says make it your ambition to lead a quiet life working with your own hands so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and you may not be dependent on anyone. And I think that that is, are you genuinely looking to point to God with the time, talent and treasure that you have? And in that is my, is your day to day life quiet or is it flamboyant? Is it over the top? Right? And so like I don't put any of my house, my cars, even the clothes I wear, I don't really put any of that stuff on social media. I don't need any more attention, right? I don't need any more clout, I don't need any of these things. And there's other people that might and, and you know, God bless them. I just don't do those things because I, I don't need that stuff on, on, on social media, nor do I think it's a good look. And so I think that leading a quiet life, working with your own hands, so healthy godly ambition leads us to work with our own hands. It leads us to not be dependent on anybody. And then when you, when you juxtapose that with, I believe it's First Timothy, Chapter 5, where it talks about he who does not provide for the needs of his family, specifically his immediate family, is worse than a non believer and is denied the faith. So you should have a ambition to at the very least provide for your family, specifically your immediate family. And if you're not even doing that, the scriptures say you're worse than a non believer and you've denied the faith. So there has to be some Ambition for you to get up and do something every day to make sure that your kids have clothes, food and shelter, or you and your wife have food, clothes and shelter, or that you're not dependent on your mom living in the basement, Right? And so it's like, if you can, if you can sort that out, then that means there has to be a healthy aspect of being driven towards something greater than yourself. And that's the key though, Sean, is that people aren't driven towards something greater than themselves. And if you don't get that this entire thing is not about you, then you won't be driven to do anything. You'll just sit on your hands all day. And it's, it's not about me. It hasn't been about me for decades. It's about Jesus. And because it's about Jesus, I have to be faithful with my time, talent and treasure. I don't need anything else. I, I, I, I've, I'm extremely blessed, like. And the goal for me is not more, it's actually less. The goal for me is to decrease my overhead, pay off my house so I have no expenses, so I can give more and be generous and, and take care of people. And so I think when people have that perspective, things just shift and they click for them. But it's from contentment. I really do believe that. And I'm not saying that as like a cliche thing to say. I'm saying that as like a. It's not about the amount of money. It's about the stewardship of the money. It's about, it's about not letting the money or the resources or the means or the status own you. It's about leveraging it for the, for the good of others. And I think if people could get a hold of that, they could really have some breakthrough. But it's hard, man, because this is a lot of deprogramming has to happen. And depending on what theological camp and background you're coming from, it could be very, very difficult to understand that money, resources, influence are all not necessarily bad things. It's just they could, if they, if they get a hold of us, they can be bad things. If our identity is in them, they could things, but in and of themselves, they can be leveraged for good and to point people to Jesus. But we got to be careful with them, right? You got to be very careful because you could easily slide in to ego. And so it's, it's a good balance to have a good tension to walk through.
- [51:08]
Sean Cannell
Would you like a free copy of the number one best selling book for growing a successful YouTube channel. If you want to get a copy of the new and expanded second edition of YouTube Secrets, just go to yt secrets.com and if you'll cover shipping and handling, I would love to send you this book for free. And the cool thing is, when you place your order, you're also going to get access to some bonus resources like our 1000 subscribers club, our 7C's framework, our perfect video recipe framework, as well as some bonus videos that will help you get results on YouTube faster. So to get your copy, just go to ytsecrets.com or click the link in the podcast Show Notes man, because there's a big difference between selfish ambition, where your ambition is just to serve yourself, your own greed, your own needs. There's a difference between toxic ambition, where maybe your ambition is to serve God, but you do it at the things you sacrifice, the things that matter most, your family, your health. The Bible's not encouraging that it would speak to not sacrificing those things that matter most. But then there's godly ambition. And you take characters like Paul or Paul was incredibly ambitious, probably one of the most ambitious leaders in history that we've seen. You think about King David, King Solomon, they were ambitious. David was, he was ambitious to defeat Goliath. And for first and foremost and by far zeal for the Lord. That was clear in scripture. But I find it fascinating that he rolls up and he's like, hey, so what? What does the guy get that defeats the giant? And they're like, well, he gets his taxes cleared out. He gets the king's daughter. And so David's like, bro, I get the money and the honey if I defeat this giant and I get to fight. So there was the practical benefits and accolades that came with fighting for God. So I love this one. And of course, follow Ruslan for the launch of his book, because I think having right ambition is critical, especially when it comes to building up your influence. Okay, we have a couple more authenticity versus a Christian Persona. So there could be a pressure to project a perfect Christian image. I think this happens with pastors a lot. There's a lot of, because you're the pastor, but you're also a real dude. And this transfers over to online content. Couples are creating content that, hey, you know, we're, we're a Christian married couple. And, and the challenge now too is like, if that's your brand, how do you handle a hard season in marriage? And do you, do you are you vulnerable with that? Should that have never been your brand in the first place? So there can be inauthentic, inauthenticity, vulnerability. But, you know, do you need to put everything out there? And so Christian content creators that are aspiring might be thinking about even maybe their own self doubt they're not perfect. Of course. We're all a work in progress. Do I need to air out all of my dirty laundry? What do you think about this? Authenticity versus, like, having a polished Christian Persona?
- [54:17]
Ruslan
Yeah, I think it's neither. I think authenticity at the expense of truth is toxic and poisonous, and I think we see some of that. Right. So I don't think you. You go authentic at the expense of truth. Like, your honesty is not always truth. And I think the Christian Persona, people can sniff through that. It's fake, they don't like it. And so I, I don't. I don't think it's either. I think my story, my life, has to be submitted to the greater good of Jesus. And there are aspects of my personality and aspects of my temperament that people don't need that honesty for me. They need me to suppress those things because they're not good. You know, those things are not always good. And so some, Some. Something that my wife told me a long time ago that's been super helpful, and I'm not even sure where she got it from or if she. I don't know if she made it up, but she said vulnerable, not intimate. Vulnerable, not intimate. I'm intimate with a handful of people in my real life. I'm intimate with my wife. She knows my struggles, what I'm dealing with. I'm intimate with my therapist. I'm intimate with my family. But I could be vulnerable with my audience. I could tell them, I could show them my scars. I don't show them my open wounds. Right. And so I think that's the tension that I've always walked in is that there are certain things that my audience doesn't need to know about what I'm going through right now, but that doesn't mean I'm going to be fake and not show them my scars and not be vulnerable. Right. And so I think there are certain things that are private and that I may talk about later, but right now, we're going to keep these things in an intimate category. And so all of that has to be submitted to truth. And I think sometimes what a lot of creators do, and not just Christian creators, is they go too intimate. They. They go intimate and they share too much. And that's that toxic authenticity where you're giving me too much information, bro. I don't need to know about the, the argument you had with your wife. I don't need to know how you mistreated your kid the other day. Right? That's not, that's not it, fam. Especially if it's like heavy stuff. And so there it's, it creates a toxic authenticity. And I think biblical truth means that I have to submit myself to Jesus while at the same time being okay to show you guys my scars and my challenges and the struggles that I've had. But I'm not going to tell you about what I'm going through right now. I, I, I try to even separate, Sean, the scriptures I read for myself. Like, I'm, I just finished first Peter, I'm in First John. That's on top of my daily proverbs. I try not to even infuse the scripture that I'm personally reading into the content because that's for me, that's what the Lord is showing me. And I think that's the, that's the solution is like, man, have some separation between content. Don't read your Bible just to create content. Just like a pastor shouldn't read their Bible just to preach. That's, that's not, that's not healthy.
- [56:47]
Sean Cannell
Yeah, that's good stuff. And last one is fame versus obscurity. And then I have one other kind of thing to tie this all together, but fame versus obscurity. So YouTube fame could be tempting. Shifting our focus maybe from seeking God to recognition. And we've kind of touched on this. Yet at the same time, there's impact and, and fame, or rather scope and size of impact. And you mentioned this verse, you know, make it your ambition to live a quiet life. Fame seems to be the opposite of the quiet life. But do you feel like scripture teaches obscurity? We've got heroes of the faith quite famous.
- [57:29]
Ruslan
Yeah.
- [57:30]
Sean Cannell
But the pursuit of fame as a primary objective I think would be disaligned with scripture. So how do you reconcile this?
- [57:36]
Ruslan
So I believe that the issue with fame is not fame in and of itself. It's actually to want to be famous for the sake of being famous. So, so, so if someone finds the cure for cancer tomorrow, they should be mega famous. We should be like, this person's amazing. Let's celebrate them. We will all be reaching out to them, especially if they were a Christian, we'd all be reaching out, trying to talk to them, get their story, get their testimony. If someone found the cure for, for cancer. That would be great news. We would want that person to be famous. And this is who used to be famous. The folks that used to be famous were people that actually did something that actually helped the world. Now people are famous for the sake of being famous. And that, that I think is dangerous. And so I think if you do something that is helpful to humanity, helpful to a group of people, you do something that's awesome. And it's not just off of hype and emotionalism and status because you're affiliated with other people who have status, but you actually are out here solving people's problems, doing something great, adding value to people in some way, shape or form, and then you become famous because of that. That's awesome. So I don't chase fame. I choose to be effective. I want to be effective. And if my audience and my platform grows as a byproduct of me being effective and helping people, praise God. But I don't need, like if, if my subscriber growth didn't grow, one more subscriber for the rest of my career. But I was able to be effective and impactful to people. I am 100 okay with that. What I like to hit the milestone of a million subscribers, sure. But what I discovered is when people hit a million subscribers, all of a sudden they're thinking about 2 million subscribers. And I know that that's a never ending void of always wanting more. It's the same way with money. It's, it's the same way with status. You, you, you hit one goal, you go to another one. Now in terms of leading a quiet life, I don't think that's about obscurity. I think leading a quiet life is about not needing to be seen and acknowledged. So leading a quiet life is like, man, we, we just live normal. Like, we don't, we don't. We're not flamboyant, we're not over the top, you know, where we're very simple people. And that to me is what leading a quiet life is about. It's, it's, it's less about obscurity and this false humility and it's more about saying, hey, you know what? Whatever God has for me, I'm okay with. But I don't need to peacock and try and get more attention for myself. I'm good. I'm good. God's good. God's. God's my sustainer. Have a great family, got a great wife, got kids, got f, got, got, got good friends. I'm good. I don't need more. I need to love God and honor him with my time, talent, and treasure.
- [59:59]
Sean Cannell
So I think this is the most important part of the conversation because you just added a lot of wisdom and gave us a lot of context. But you mentioned a word called deprogramming. And in some cases, I'm convinced that maybe even a majority of those listening to this might be stuck. They might be on the sidelines. They might hesitate from pressing record because they've actually believed a lie.
- [60:24]
Ruslan
Absolutely.
- [60:25]
Sean Cannell
And that they are, whether the script in their own head, which could be their own voice, religious upbringing, or even demonic narratives. We know that Satan is a deceiver. He's the father of lies. But he also masquerades as an angel of light. And so in Genesis, he said, did God really say so? There's a lot of twisting. So he might be. You're hearing things like, oh, you're going to be prideful to start that channel, as opposed to, well, no, people need to hear your testimony. And it's not about ambition to be famous. But even if you just reached one or you reached 100, what would happen? Like, who's waiting for you on the other side of you showing up and taking God's vision for your life seriously? Who's waiting for you? It said, the harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. There's a lack of workers. It said, pray that there be workers sent in the harvest field. And my prayer is that this podcast would inspire some people to get off the sidelines and say, I'm going to be willing to fight pride in ego, but I'm not going to let false humility hold me back. I'm not going to say, oh, I'm more spiritual if I take a vow of poverty. I need money for the mission because the size of the vision God has given me. I can monetize my content. I can market my ministry. You know, sometimes what's called clickbait is good marketing. And it is my ethical responsibility to become great at marketing, because if I care about the message that I have, I want that message to reach as many people as possible. They might be, you know, the voice is, oh, you're being worldly by setting growth goals or wanting to reach more people or building influence. But ultimately, Colossians 3. 23 tells us to work with all of our hearts until the Lord. Pursuing excellence would be pursuing excellence in the platform, the thumbnails, the titles, the best practices, and to leave to do our best to prepare for the worst and trust God to bring the victory like how much. Whatever talents he's given me, I'm going to multiply those and see what he does. So ultimately land the plane for us because I really believe that it's lies and strongholds that actually keep Christians stuck. And for a lot of people that are following Jesus, the enemy has already lost the battle of like talking them out of God's existence. Their faith in Jesus is anchored. I believe God exists, but the most insidious thing he'll do next is make you ineffective. If he could get you to believe lies that keep you stuck on the sidelines or keep you ineffective, then ultimately you're not going to be fruitful and multiply, which is our very commission to, to do so. So, so land the plane with some final thoughts when it comes to Christian content creators and maybe the opportunity here to, to get your, you know, do not be conformed to the pattern of the world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind. Getting your mind truly aligned with Scripture. Yes to, to avoid these traps of greed or worldly ambition, but also to lean heavily into the truth of Godly ambition.
- [63:34]
Ruslan
Yeah man, that's so good. And this is what I think Sean is, I believe and Dave Ramsey says this all the time. What you, what you believe about the world will determine how you behave. And if you believe things that are little guy can't get ahead, the system is rigged. You can never be successful. You can never earn enough to take care of your family. Fill in a blank. There's so many lies that, that we're told and, and some of them to your point man, is, is from a what I would call a toxic framework of how you view God in the Scriptures, right. To, to, to be ineffective. And, and my thought, thought is what a time to be alive where we could be so interconnected with so many different people and you could actually reach a person who, or connect with a person like yourself. Sean that loves Jesus, loves his family, has a voice, is theologically sound, but his business is astute and can give wisdom. How do we deprogram? We find voices and mentors of people that have the character attributes, the values and the outcomes that we want and we listen to them so that our brains start to change and our thoughts start to change and then we do the things that they said to do, then we actually do them because you can just consume a lot of self help or a lot of godly Bible, this, that, but if you're not doing anything with it, then you're just going to become spiritually obese and so I think it's a man. There's more resources out there than ever before. If they don't like you, maybe they'll check out my channel. If they don't like my channel, maybe they'll go listen to John Auf. If they don't like John Auf, maybe. Right? There's so many amazing voices out there. So I would say listen to the voices of the people you want to become like and who have the results that you want, like, genuinely want. What results do you want? Do you want your family to struggle? Do you want to be poor? Do you want to always live hand to mouth? Do you always want to live paycheck to paycheck? Is that. Is that really what you want? Or is that what you've been conditioned to want? So I say, what do you want? And who are the voices that are communicating values and a framework from a biblical worldview that have some of the results you want? Listen to them driving passively, driving actively in your podcast on your morning walk, and then do the things they say to do, like, do the things they said do. So for me, like, I remember reading John Acuff's Quitter, and it was so monumental because Quitter was about going from your day job to your dream job. And I had transitioned to going from working with adults with developmental disabilities. Like my first job at my church, where I was the media guy for two years. And I remember John ace of saying things like, don't do other stuff while you're on the clock. You're stealing from your boss. And he would say these hard truths. You think you're going to go crush it in your side hustle if you can't even be faithful in your. In your day to day job. And I'll actually listen to him. Like, I didn't do other stuff while I was working. I made sure that I honored my employer. Right? Those ideas change my framework, and applying them change the trajectory of my life. And now you don't have to just get it in the book anymore. John Akoff has a podcast now. Like, he's crushing it. He's out there, he's available, and there's dozens of John Acups that, like, if I'm not your cup of tea, if Sean's not your cup of tea, find someone that you align with theologically, business acumen, whatever, and do the things they say to do, and you'll be shocked how much your life and your trajectory starts to change as you apply the wisdom of other people.
- [66:37]
Sean Cannell
Man, Ruslan, you provided so much value to our community today and grateful for you as a creator, entrepreneur, as a friend. You got some really cool stuff coming up and there's people listening to this, especially if they made it this far. Should definitely check out some of the things you're you're doing. You've got an event we can link to that. You've got some other resources. So give us a roll call of how we could go deeper with you.
- [66:58]
Ruslan
Yeah, I, I just put out my very first devotional. It's called the Occupy Till I Come devotional. It's actually the artwork on this, on this hoodie collaboration on the artwork with Josh Nado, good friend of mine. Sword and pencil. And yeah, it's 60 days through the entire scriptures, 35 days in Old Testament, 25 days in the New Testament. Custom prompts every single day to help you reflect on what you wrote about. A place to write down your prayers. We're big on prayer journaling, so that just came out. We have our leadership planner, our prayer journals. The thing I'm probably most excited for is our three day summit, let's God summit happening March 27th, 28th, 29th. I'm pulling together my best, my favorite podcasters, my favorite pastors and preachers and my favorite performers to just immerse people in three days. It's happening here in Carlsbad, California at the Westin. And we just really want to pour people, pour into people and give them that like inspiration. But the, but the practical application so that we could build better culture and equip people to do the ministry in their own lives of what they're supposed to be called to do and what they're supposed to be doing in the season that they're in.
- [67:57]
Sean Cannell
So think Media podcast. Check out everything in the show notes where you can see Ruslan stuff and any of the things he mentioned. And thanks again for listening to this episode like Rate Share review wherever you watch or listen. My name is Sean Cannell, your guide to building a profitable YouTube channel and we will talk soon.