Tuesday, October 24th | One Year Celebration!

Hello, everyone. Today is Tuesday, October 24th. I'm Ryan Hill. Jon Galantis. We are here today in the Clearview Today studio with our host, Dr. Abbadon Shah, celebrating 100 years of Clearview Today.

100 episodes of Clearview Today. Oh, that's it? No sound to this? They don't make noises? It's bring-your-own-sound. Can we put some sound effects in right here? 100 episodes.

As always, we've got to hit the grunt birthday party right here. There it is. Ah, very nice.

Very nice. 100 years of Clearview Today. 100 years. I don't know why I said 100 years. 100 days. 100 episodes.

I'm all over the place. No, it's not 100 episodes. It's a full year. We've had more than 100 episodes. That's got nothing to do with 100. Why did I think it was 100? Because we just celebrated Miss Leslie's 100th birthday.

100. It has nothing to do. One year of Clearview Today. This was a train wreck. Take a breather.

Take a breather. There's nothing to do with 100. This is one year of Clearview Today. But it ought to be 100. Since it's a daily show, that means there's more than 100 episodes.

You're right. I don't know what number episode this is. It's been 250. I'm having a hard time today. But it's okay, man. Listen.

You're good. I'm having a hard time. This party hat's on a little too tight. It's cutting the blood flow. That's what's happening.

Let's do this. How does yours fit in, Dr. Abbadon? It feels weird.

It's kind of weird. The first time I wore this was like, my goodness, when I was a kid. I don't put anything on my head like that. Were it like your kids' birthday parties?

No, I wouldn't do that for them. I always get my hair all caught up in this. We can take it off of you. It felt like as you're stretching it up over your head, it felt kind of dangerous. Like that string gets real tight. I don't know where it's going to pop.

It's cutting off the blood flow so that you've got 100 firmly locked in. Yeah, that was locked in. I think we did. I think we did.

That was firmly entrenched in my mind. I think we did celebrate our 100th episode. We did. You're right. I remember that now. But, yeah.

But I did five minutes ago. This is one calendar year of Clearview today. Dr. Shah, how does it feel getting to a full year of the show? Well, this was coming. There's none of this that we're doing here is by accident, is by chance. This is not just that we just happened to walk into a, hooray, it's a success. How did this happen?

I mean, for years and years we have been doing broadcasting or we started Carpe Manana that went on for several years from 2018 till 20, 21, 22, so four years of Carpe Manana. And then, so it was time for us to go this way. We just didn't know how this was going to work out. And then God worked it out in an amazing way. And here we are.

I love that you say that because it's very important, I think, to all of us that God gets the credit for this because I believe if it weren't for God, I would have chickened out and not done a daily show format. Because we were talking about bringing Carpe Manana to a close and starting up Hoi Paloi, which was a different show. Yeah. Yeah. And that was really... That's right. We also did Hoi Paloi.

That's right. Just with me. And then I will bring in guests. And then the guests were pretty much perpetual guests just coming back. Kind of like serious regulars. Yeah. They're like, hey, when am I being on the show again?

It's like, um, at this time. You know what they call that? That's the Urkel syndrome. And I don't mean no disrespect, but like Urkel was a guest character and they just kept bringing him back. And then he became a mainstay. Yeah. He ended up staying.

People think Urkel's the main character of Family Matters. It was kind of the same thing with Hoi Paloi. But that was really, I loved Carpe Mignana, but we were locked into a certain format at a certain time. And then when we tried to go deep, we also had a much larger cast. So we didn't really have the time to devote to the deep theological truths that people wanted from you.

And so going into my goal and our goal together was to bring Hoi Paloi back. But then we were given an opportunity. God kind of gave us an opportunity.

And I'll mention the name is Stu Epperson with Truth Network. What a wonderful man and a wonderful man of God. And he saw something and then God led him to make that offer to us. And before we knew it, this was much bigger than we had ever imagined. And here we are at, not the hundredth episode, not the hundredth episode, not the hundredth year.

This is just one year anniversary. It was really encouraging because that was, to me, oh, we talked about this, the three of us and David and Nick and the rest of the team talked about this at length, that this is the first time, or maybe one of the first times that someone has come to us and said, we want your content. We want it. And it was like, if this is a sign from God, let's not throw this opportunity away. Exactly. I mean, this, we could not have prepped this and planned this the way it has ended up. And I use the word ended up.

That's not a good word. The way it has blossomed and grown. So many viewers, so many listeners, so many people communicating with us.

And now some of the things we say have become catchphrases. We have people asking for merchandise, can you make a t-shirt with this? Can you do this or do that, like a hat or a mug? The coffee mug.

Coffee mugs. We never imagined that would get to this point in just a matter of a year. No, not at all. It's incredible to see what God does when you're willing to say yes. Because we could have looked at it and been like, a daily show, wow, that's a lot. And there were moments where we thought that, like, how in the world are we going to do a daily show?

It's a lot of work. And that was the thing that I was talking about earlier, when Dr. Shah kind of brought the offer to the table. I mean, Mr. Epperson took us all out to lunch and then said, you know, but there were no details. It was like, we just want you on the network. We talked it through. And then Dr. Shah, I remember we all went in the office and we talked about, and what about a daily show? I was like, okay, so like a five minute devotional, no, like a full time slot on the radio, a 30 minute daily show. And I remember being like, just so full of doubt, like, how on earth, like, I want to, the desire's there.

How will it happen? And I'm so glad that we fired that shot. Yeah, absolutely. And as I was just thinking about it, when this whole thing began, I said, what would that look like? And if you remember, I came and talked to you, I said, you know, it needs to have you two guys just banter for a while, maybe bring in a guitar, bring in with the music song. We haven't done that yet. I'm still working on it.

Yeah. I'm still looking forward to that. I want this to happen where you're writing songs, creating things, and then somehow it leads into a conversation where I am brought in and then I talk. But I want this not just to be a show that I begin with, like, you know, some of the podcasters out there or radio hosts, no, I want this to be our show with people on the show with me on a regular basis with their own mannerisms, their own idiosyncrasies.

Just be funny in their own way. And it happened. Now it's people identify different characters. Amen. And I love that. And I love that it leads people to start trusting you more because even people who don't go to church here feel like they know you.

And when people feel like they know you, they identify with you and they trust you and they rely on your wisdom and your biblical guidance. One of my favorite things is when we'll be in the community somewhere and someone comes up to you and they're like, are you? Are you from Clearview today? Are you Dr. Shaw from Clearview today?

Or even like, are you Dr. Questions from there? But I love that it's known and it's known beyond just kind of our immediate circle. We have people that we don't readily know, people that we don't recognize coming up to us and talking about the show.

That's very encouraging. Radio is one of those weird ones that people think is on the way out. But then you look at like the internet and you look at like all these different churches that have their production teams and their production, but it's for members of that church.

You know what I mean? It's radio, I think is still one of the best ways to get it out to that larger audience who may not necessarily be in your congregation. And as I look back at my life, how did I end up in broadcasting? My dad sent me to the college in Georgia, Tocqueville Falls College, about 45 minutes northeast of Atlanta. And he sent me there just for two years. So I would go and study and have a biblical foundation.

And he told me, he said, after that, you're welcome to come back home, go to medical school, go to engineering school, whatever you want to do. It doesn't matter as long as you have this biblical foundation. And so I came and very quickly I was like, I'm not going in ministry.

This is not for me. And three years into being at Tocqueville Falls, I met Nicole. And through Nicole, my wife right now, and through her, I met her dad, who made a profound impact in my life.

And so all this, let me back up for a moment. So I picked up the only major I felt like was just had nothing to do with Christianity, in a sense. So I wanted to pick up a very secular major, and broadcast journalism was the only one there. And so I began that. And then when I met Nicole's dad, things began to shift, and I realized, wow, could it be that one day I will be able to do broadcasting as a ministry to touch lives? But then it took, what, 25 more years to get to this point. I think people lose sight of that, because they see a radio show, and they see a personality on a screen, and they're like, wow, I want that. I want to have that instant success.

I mean, I want to be able to walk into that and just, oh man, that's the magic bullet I've been waiting for. But they don't see the 25 years that got you to this point. And it's not just 25 years, it's also those years in college wondering, why am I doing broadcast journalism? I wanted to be here only two years, but now I ended up staying another year. And then I met Nicole's dad, and my life began to change a little bit.

And then it was like, oh, maybe there's something here. But then I ended up going to seminary, and it's like, well, no seminary. I think I'm going to be a professor. And then God sort of closed that door or redirected me. He's like, yes, you're going to do a PhD, but you're not going to stay in the academy wholesale. You're going to also be in actual pulpit.

And so I was like, OK, all right, that's what I'm going to do. And then I'm like, maybe I need to start a radio program. Who listens to radio anymore?

This is in the 2000s. The internet is coming out, and everybody's talking about internet radio, what do they call that? Podcasts. Not podcasting, but it was- I know what you're talking about. It's like streaming the radio or something along those lines. Yeah, Sirius XM stuff. Yeah, Sirius XM stuff.

And nobody listens to radio anymore. And then it made full circle and came back when one of our church families asked me if I would consider being on radio in South Hill and in Oxford. When I first came in 2010, you were already pretty well established in that radio community. Because I remember one of the first times I ever visited, you started your sermon, thank you all so much for being here this morning.

Thank you so much to our radio audience. Yeah, you remember that? I remember that. And I was like, wow, okay.

Because I was very tech-minded at the time. I really liked it. So I was like, okay, they've got it set up through the radio. I don't know if they're broadcasting live or if it gets later, but I was interested in that because I was tech-minded in that way. Yeah, I used to begin every sermon with, thank you so much for being here. And also we want to welcome our radio audience. We appreciate you being here week after week. And it was only two radio stations.

One to the southern part of Virginia and the other one from Oxford going towards Raleigh-Durham-Chapel Hill. And so there we did a lot of work to refine things and modify and grow and understand. And then we kept adding radio stations, two, three more radio stations. And then, of course, by the time John came along and then Ryan came and then David and others came along and here we are. It's amazing to see just the growth and the development and how God used everything for a purpose. Nothing was wasted.

Everything got lined up so perfectly that everything was a building block to the next level. For you, as both a scholar and a pastor, over the past year, what has this show meant for you? What has been your hope and what has been the most encouraging thing you've seen happen through this show? A lot of things that I preach are based on solid research. Then there are things that I preach that are not based on solid research like footnotes and all, but they do have good backing behind it based on my reading, my study, my research. But I haven't taken the time to footnote things or make sure my sources are reputable or up to speed or up to date. But getting on the radio show has forced me to make sure that everything that I'm saying can be backed up. Backed up academically, backed up theologically, backed up in a way that there are no conflicts in my theology and my system of thinking. Sometimes have you heard people say one thing and then they say something else and you go, wait, didn't you just contradict yourself when nobody calls them out?

It's just like, well, I guess maybe it works out in their head. But I have to make sure now that everything I write for my sermons that I can back it up and I can say, I got that point from here or this doctrine that I'm talking about. You can read this book, this book, this book, and it'll help you grow in your understanding. So it has helped me to sharpen my thinking and also sharpen my ability to reason, to explain, to still get to the heart of the issue, but make it relevant enough for people to understand and apply. So yeah, it's made me sharper than I was before. I think it comes through in your preaching as well that people see that these sermons, ever since we started the radio show, the sermons are getting deeper.

They're getting, like you said, they're sharper. And one thing that I think people don't really know is that for every sermon you preach, well, let me ask you this, maybe you'd answer it better. What percentage of what you research goes into a sermon?

Wow, great question. I would say, again, it depends on each sermon, but I would say maybe 45 to 55%. So about that same percentage is left out of the sermon. The radio show kind of gives you that leeway that you don't have on a Sunday morning. Not leeway, but that talking room. I'm working towards that.

I'm working towards that because I have to also ask myself, how much will my audience be able to understand and grasp this in a matter of 25 minutes? So I have to really think, okay, this is a big can of worms. Should I open this?

Should I wait? Should I just like quickly open the lid and close it back? I don't know. Just a peek at the inside. And I think that's wisdom, too, that a lot of people don't... I don't think I've took it into consideration before. There are times where people will write in and ask about those big, big universally challenged questions.

What do you think about free will? Does baptism actually save you in this stuff? You can give the short answers, but then to go really heavily into those topics takes a lot of time. Takes a lot of time.

You want to make sure you don't just say things out there. And it's hard because we're doing five shows a week. Five shows a week. So imagine if I have to do a five, six hour research for each show, add them up five times five... Twenty-five. Twenty-five hours. Now, still there's a sermon that we do Sunday morning and one Saturday night and three Sunday mornings. So I have to prepare for that. And that takes me good about 15 some hours. And then you don't even touch all the community outreach stuff that you do.

Yeah, or management at the church or supervision or help or mentorship or counseling. We add all those things up. Huh? I said we're writing. We're writing. We're writing books as well. If we add all those things up, then it's like an 80 hour week. Yeah.

Incredible. Weddings and funerals and all that. All the good stuff that comes along with being a pastor. Baptisms.

Nice. People don't see those things though. We get to see more of a glimpse than normal people do. But it gives me such an appreciation for you and for what you bring not only to the show, but to the team here at Clearview and your leadership and your development of us as individuals as men. Just grateful. I would say I am grateful, number one, to you guys.

This show would not be where it is today. It wasn't for you, Jon, especially because you were kind of like the mind behind it, the heart behind it. And so thank you for what you're doing.

I have to do it. I appreciate that because, ladies and gentlemen, it's Jon who's writing all the show notes and laying things out for us to know which way to go. Now we sit down and plan out the calendar for the show.

Us three, we sit down and then we talk about, okay, on Monday the 11th, I'm just making a date, Abraham Kuyper was born. So let's talk about him. We haven't done that yet, by the way. We need to do that.

One of my favorite theologians. So let's put it down for that. Well, there's Halloween coming. Why don't we talk about Reformation Day? So let's add that in there. Or even if we want to talk about Halloween, let's talk about Halloween.

Let's talk about where does it come from? How does it imply? So we plan out the calendar, right? But then once that is done, Jon pretty much takes over each of those planning, each of those days, shows, and then he begins to write out the show notes, the questions.

Then he'll bounce them off of me and say, what do you think about this? Is this, am I headed in the right direction or not? What needs to happen? So those are things that I'm so grateful to you. Amen. Well, I'll keep the gratefulness train rolling, because without you and without your foundation in broadcasting, your foundation, your connections you've made, we wouldn't even have a show to do. That's true. And I think that's an encouragement that you guys watching can take, especially if you're production-minded.

You got to, number one, involve your pastor, because your pastor is your biggest ally. Be grateful for the work that they've already done, and build on the work that they've done making those connections. Find their strengths. I know Dr. Shah's strengths are academics, so I'm not going to go make a show based on something that he's... Entertainment or something. Yeah, entertainment or pop culture. Well, I do know a lot, but not enough anymore. But bringing those projects and bringing ideas like this to your pastor, even though this show wasn't my idea, the show was pitched to us, still doing it built on a foundation that has been built for you involves the entire team.

There's equal buy-in from everybody, and I'm grateful that we get to do it, because this is my dream. But then there's Ryan, and his task is different. He's not the one who's getting the show notes together and all that, because if that also is added to his plate, it'll be too much. But then you do give a tone, a sense of a character to the show. You're the one who is opening the show, closing the show. And so it brings a level of connection with the audience that I don't have, Jon doesn't have, but you have. And so you're doing that, and you're also asking very pertinent questions. It's not just that you're the bookends of the show, but you are very much vested in what's happening.

Now, I know some days you're tired, and I can see that in your eyes, but overall, you are very much vested. Once the show gets rolling, it's just as much as Jon and Ryan. So it's not like Jon's running this thing. No, Ryan is just as much, at times even more, connected with what's happening here. So thank you to Jon. Thank you to Ryan. Absolutely.

Thank you. And then, of course, you don't see this side over here of our podcast room. And that is David and Nicholas. Now, if these guys were not there, we would just be over here talking to ourselves. We'd just be having a conversation around a table.

Yeah, the mics wouldn't even be plugged in. David does phenomenal work, so much work that goes on in getting this show ready to go, and then editing it for YouTube and sending it to the radio stations. It's a lot.

It's a lot, because you've got to get the shows right. The timing has to be right, taking out anything that's extraneous so that we can condense it down. But that's what's happening back there, and I'm very grateful to him. And he also adds a lot to the show. That's right. I can easily make him part of this group right here, but then that's one more thing.

And I don't want to do that. Then it'll be like one more thing in everywhere. Then if you're everywhere, then you won't be as good. I have to work on that myself, because sometimes there are seasons where I'm doing so much that I'm not good at that one thing that I'm good at.

So there's a handful of things that are critical, others you have to go, OK, I'm not going to be 100% involved in that planning of the show, because if you do, then there are other things that are going to be left behind. That's right. And of course, Nicholas right here, my son.

Hello, Nicholas. Wave. He did wave. And he is a full-time student. Of course, some of the other guys are as well, John and David, but he's a full-time student.

He's also full-time here, I mean, 40-plus hours, almost 50 hours a week. And then of course, this room right here, he's done a great job helping design it, set it up. Of course, the other guys were involved as well. But he wanted to do it this way, and it really brings a lot of character to the show, and I appreciate him as well. And then we have people who are not in this room, like Melissa, who is my secretary, Jackson, who is new on the staff, but he's doing a great job in advertising, TikTok, and all that stuff. Adam, doing a lot with social media, doing a lot with images.

I can go talk on and on. I just want the audience to know that it's not just me, but it's so many people, and each of them is valuable, but definitely want to highlight the main ones. Definitely. Well, again, we want to thank you as well for everything that you do, because without a strong foundation and without your connections and your knowledge of how broadcast works and how this stuff goes together, we're throwing darts at the wall and seeing what sticks. But it's always, always, always beneficial to have a head start, you know what I mean? Something solid to build on. And I have that foundational knowledge because of my education, because of my time in the field of broadcasting or broadcast journalism.

But now you guys have taken it to another level with your understanding of technology, with your understanding of where the culture is, getting a pulse for how people talk and how people do radio broadcasting or podcasting nowadays. See, I've lost that touch. I have the foundation down. I have the girders, if you keep our new building in mind.

We have the frame down, but there are a lot of other things that I am not up on. I'm up on my subject, my theology or New Testament or textual criticism, but you guys come and you do the other things and I'm grateful. And one more thing, I'm very grateful to our church family, because they're 100% behind this. And at first it didn't make sense, it's like, so radio show, like, are we going to listen to it? Anybody else? I'm like, no, we are taking what's happening here into the bigger world. And they were also like, so it's the sermon, you're just going, because the sermon's already on the radio.

I thought that again. Yeah. No, no, this is going to be, being the salt and light, we're going to step into a very different arena because we feel God is opening doors and he's taking us there and it's time that we respond.

And it's going to be tough, it's going to be expensive. And they have been behind this thing. And of course, Truth Network, Stu Epperson, I can't thank him enough, Mark Reed, I can't thank him enough, but if Stu hadn't approached us and Mark hadn't, you know, did his part, we wouldn't be sitting here. Yeah, the guys over at the Truth Network, it's insane how unyieldingly supportive they are.

Yes. Like, like just how, not only just support, like whatever, just on fire, like, oh, love the show, love what you guys are doing. I want more of it. I'll put it on this station. I'll put it on that station. You want some more stations? Stations for you.

Like, just, just, I've never met people who are so hundred percent on your side at all times. Yeah, that's the thing that struck me the most from the time we started those conversations with Stu Epperson and with Mark Reed and with the Truth Network, is just how much they believed in the show that didn't exist yet. How much they were like, we want, not just we want to fill a time slot, we want you, we want you, Dr. Shah, on the radio, we believe in your message, we believe in what you're doing and we think people need to hear it.

I remember one time when he took us out to lunch that first time, he came back and we had a meeting here. Right. And I remember like, cause I was, I was like getting anxious, like I need details.

What do you want this show to be? And I remember the way he said it was, he was like, I don't care what the show is. Yeah.

Get him to talk. He like looked at Dr. Shah, he was like, I want him to talk on my station. Yeah. Whatever the show is, that's what it needs to be. And he clarified too, Stu clarified for me, and that was very reassuring, which is that we don't just throw anybody on the show and I felt humbled and at the same time, very grateful to God for the reputation we have because that right there was the greatest compliment was that it's not just randomly, we just want you there, it's because of what you stand for, what you believe about the gospel, about the truth of the word of God, about how salvation is through Jesus Christ, God's son, and we want that and how values do matter in this nation.

I was like, okay, all right, if that's what this person is saying, then it's time for us to actually believe that this is what God is calling us to do. That's right. And I think if we continue, we will, through Clearview today, we will see Christian Talk Radio have a resurgence, I think in America. I believe it will.

I believe it will. Yeah. Yeah.

I love that so much. Well, let me ask you this, Dr. Shah, if you had one desire or one wish for the future of Clearview today, what would it be? Wow. I mean, we need to go national. I believe it's time when God is opening the doors. I'm ready for that. That's awesome.

Yeah. As of right now, October 24th, 2023, we're pretty popular on the East Coast. I would say, you want to say, let's make it a thing here now, around this table, that October 24th, 2024, we're a national show. I was going to say, let's check in after year two. Let's do it. Let's play this moment back a year from now, so that we can say, by God's grace, we're a national show. Amen.

Amen. Love it so much. Thank you guys so much for joining us for today's episode. If you enjoyed it, if you liked today's episode, and if you haven't done so already, what are you doing?

Texting that number, 252-582-5028. Let us know what your favorite memories are from this past year of Clearview Today. If you'd like to support us, if you like this content, and you want to help us get it out to as many people as possible, visit our website, cleerviewtodayshow.com, scroll to the bottom, click that donate link, and become part of our Clearview Today show family. Happy one year, gentlemen. Happy one year. Happy one year to you guys. Happy one year.

All of you. Happy one year. Before we go, can we just do one more Grunt birthday party right here? Damn. It just makes my heart feel good every time we... Oh, you brought a Grunt.

You brought it in for one year. The Grunt birthday party, when we do it, that's what it is. It's this little guy, and he goes, hooray! Thank you, buddy. Love it. We love you guys. We'll see you tomorrow on Clear Eats Today.