The 2024 Yearly Address

Happy New Year, my friends! Happy 2024!

This is a new thing at Media Moses (this "Yearly Address") because this has been our first year of existence as an "uncompromising" American entertainment industry news and trade website! This made 2023 very significant for us!

Our founding date was July 4th, 2023. We had been writing stories for about a year before that (mostly internally), and we had a soft website launch about a month or two before the official launch date. Before that we had built the site up over two years of struggling with dishonest and inadequate web designers. So, 2023 will likely be one of the most significant years for us, for some time. But, with this new year we hope to do far more groundbreaking things!

I have old filmmaker friends (one of them who is a subscriber) who likely think I have fallen off the wagon entirely. I hope to disprove this theory this year. But, more than that, I hope to have community meetings and online discussions this year that can outline many of my complex plans and ideas for you, and lay that bare, opening myself up for "pant loads of scrutiny."

I welcome the discussion because for years I wasn't as secure in my plans as I am now. I was taught to consistently doubt myself growing up, and this has led me into a good direction, to finally learn that my time has come to speak with more authority, now.

When you hold yourself to certain standards of perfection, you eventually learn that barely nobody else does this, and that while my plans may bear no resemblance to some sort of divine mandate, they do hold up under human scrutiny plenty. In contrast, most people will generally put all of five minutes into their theories. Then, they "finish them" in erecting their building on top of them. Looks nice but this can fall, easily. I always sought to do the opposite. This means that my house can go up quite rapidly now, and quite securely, because I have always cared most of all that my foundation is secure and well established upon something rock solid. This foundation is build upon what I consider to be God's calling for my life.

Just to clarify, when I say "standards of perfection" I don't mean that I am perfect or that my goals cannot fail. That is completely absurd. What I mean is that I sought to submit my plans to the Lord. When you feel that you have sufficiently done this you can feel there is a measure of a perfect standard applied to your goals. Again, this doesn't mean your plans will not fail or go bankrupt or reach nobody when these plans are executed. It means that you did what God told you to do, and according to heaven's standards, you are victorious. This is the Victory of the Cross. But if you think the disciples of Jesus clapped their hands while Jesus was suffering on the cross and said, "This plan is perfect and came off without a hitch!" you are fooling yourself. Yet, it was perfect and it did work.

Don't misunderstand. I am not equating myself to our Lord, or announcing that this perfect plan will save humanity. When Jesus' disciples said that they'd be willing to die for him, and suffer, Jesus said, "Are you able to drink of the cup I am about to drink?" Obviously the answer was rhetorical. No, we can't do what Jesus did, because he was and is God. But, yet are we still able to do great things for God. Things that God has prepared for us to do.

So, what kind of nonsense am I speaking of here?

Mythopoeia. Legend. Story. Craftsmanship. The Gospel. The Culture War.

The infusing of the gospel into our daily lives in effort to reform culture.

Paul states in I Corinthians that he is glad that he didn't baptize some, nor speak with eloquence because then they would likely be following him as their leader instead of following Christ. He chose, instead, to allow the "foolishness of God" (and God's plan of salvation) to speak for itself in order for the wisdom of the world to be made foolish. Is this his way of saying that we as Christians shouldn't be wise, nor should we utilize craft, nor art, nor our intelligence to craft a convincing argument for the gospel? Not at all. Paul was saying, however, that some are so foolish as to believe that being wise in the world is more impressive than being simple with the gospel message. But, there is no substitute, nor better story, nor better message, that is more appropriate to saving mankind from our sins than the gospel. As a storyteller, I can vouch for this reality. As you craft stories (of which I have crafted many) you begin to see that the more complex your own stories, the more you look at the gospel and you say, "Yes, but this is more complex, elegant, beautiful, powerful, and effectual. This changes lives, and this changed my own. I cannot compete with the best storyteller, so I learn from the best to make at least a halfway decent one."

But does this mean that God has no great work to fulfill in us, because the war has been won in Christ? Absolutely not. Do not be fatalistic and say "What will be will be." Do not be cynical and say "I have nothing new to offer that hasn't already been rejected whole-cloth."

First of all, you don't know that. Second of all, it isn't about you. Third of all, hey maybe it's your turn to fail utterly, as well. Enjoy it. It's exactly what the disciples thought was happening to Christ when he was on the cross. Now we know it as the winning battle that helped us win this war for mankind. Every little way that "we fail" now as believers is really a raving success because of Christ's success on that rugged tree.

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So, let's briefly go over our successes from 2023 a bit, and then go over what our goals are for 2024.

In the future I plan to have a Christmas article for you all, and then a year-end round up, and a beginning of year list of goals. This first year, I didn't have all this worked out, and sadly was unprepared for Christmas this year. So we will try to do our yearly round up and put our future goals into this single Yearly Address.

I think many of you know just how extensive my goals are. You also know how comfortable I am with "not meeting them" perfectly. I am often not on time, and often don't achieve them as planned. I think we should be grateful for "the simple act of having goals," and "that we can work on them," instead. These things are worth thanking God for. This thanksgiving centers us on the reality that God has set us apart for.

I mean, here we are. You have achieved so much, I'm sure. And has it ever been a good thing to constantly remind yourself how you failed at one aspect of goal-setting when living, working, loving, and growing is really far more important than being good at predicting the future? No. We aren't supposed to hold ourselves to that kind of standard. Instead, loving God and loving your neighbor is the standard. Try your honest best to do that, instead of thinking you're some sort of deity that can't be questioned. The idea is to do your best.

So what were our 2023 goals and what did we complete?

A cultural discussion point? Yes.
Various podcasts/shows? Not yet.
Establishing a tone of reasonable (not political) dialogue and high quality craftsmanship? We're getting much closer.
Books? On the way.
Films? On the way.

As we went along, some technical issues such as the WP site, writing issues, podcast studio, subscription challenges, etc. all showed up and were mostly handled.

Ghost.org solved most of our technical issues. It was likely the biggest victory we had this year, second to getting the site up itself.

I want to thank my Dad for helping me get the site up, since nobody else would help me do the site. I spent $1500 on grifters while my Dad helped me and talked with me a few times and he demanded no payment.

This is the difference between Christian charity (love) and the world's hate.

So, here's the list.

2023 Goals:

1. WP Website
2. Articles
3. Writers
4. Subscriptions
5. Podcast/YT Show Studio
6. Ghost Website
7. Dynamic paywall
8. Start work on WELL
   

These things aren't perfect. The year before last year (late 2022) I wanted to do a promo video for Media Moses which mostly fell through, but it meant a lot to me that we attempted it. I have the footage and plan to use it still.

Why didn’t I use this footage yet? No place to put it. I still don't have my Media Moses channel up on YouTube, since I decided (after I got the site up) to work together with others (Riley, Rebecca) to get our fellow-projects up to make a superchat show, which added some deeper complexity to my podcasts and shows. This led to having multiple shows & channels planned (Cultural Warfare, Media Moses Weekly, The OFB, When We Love Jesus, Riley & Winfree). This greater complexity has caused many things to take longer but I wouldn't have done it had it not made a ton of sense.

The reason these make sense? The YouTube shows/podcasts are about building community and about monetizing smartly. That means 1. superchat show 2. mobilizing multiple influencers in collabs 3. making platforms that can engage in marketing easily. Just making a podcast or show isn't enough. You need to plan forward so that it can be built out easily.

Thankfully the ease of writing, site issues, subscription & dynamic paywall issues were mostly solved through switching to Ghost.

We will continue on the podcast/YT show efforts this next year. Working on the kids books will hopefully be more successful this year as well, and the film work. So let's list the upcoming goals we have.

Goals for 2024:

1. More articles per week
2. Start CW, WWLJ, The OFB, set up MM Weekly.
3. Get publishing process started for (2) kids books
4. Finish (1) short script (NELL)
5. Finish (1) feature script (Forty Days in Paradise)
6. Start getting ads and sponsorship deals going
7. Start writing The Moses We Need

This can start me on the process to complete monetization for the site, making it a growing business instead of a full time debt hole. I can start my process to begin explaining my calling to others, which has taken me years to arrive at. I can do the pre-production required to get this feature film (about the temptation of Christ) off the ground. And finally the book I seek to write about all this can start to provide a platform for me to explain what Media Moses and my calling is to others (on their shows), so I can be a guest, speaking about the movement we seek to get started here.

I have a bit of a guilty pleasure that I seek to start again, which is music. But I'm convinced that unless I can discipline myself better on a daily basis, there is no point to doing that. Too much on my plate. But the reason I mention it is that I am reticent to mention that at the same time I was writing my two kids books (When the Elephants Came to Town and The Caterpillar & The Worm) I was also working on my first musical project in years, called 21st Century Man. It consists of 14 songs, and it has a western/blues/classic rock vibe to it with a few newer instruments and sounds. Like Johnny Cash, Bob Dylan, The Walker Brothers, and Hank Snow put together, along with a touch of newer The War on Drugs, Future Islands, and Starflyer 59, and some instrumentation like some eighties artists like Orchestral Maneuvers in the Dark, The Psychedelic Furs, New Order, and The Smiths.

There was about five minutes in my twenties, when I just wanted to play rock'n'roll but I couldn't ignore the sublime praise music that Christian Rock presented me with. I was always trapped between genres and audience demographics. Nobody seemed to be interested in the artsy yet emotional Christian rock that accomplished everything I wanted it to. After studying various artists, and going through about five different bands, I gave up on this project and moved over to owning a business, and to film. This was in the mid 2000's. This was a very difficult and troublesome time for me. Also, I was in the hospital and thought I might die of Guillion Barre Syndrome. I lost my business after this and had to seriously take stock of my life. The next year I went into film and worked to make a feature film as a script supervisor/post-production supervisor/producer.

But that's only a part of the story. More will be expounded upon as we go through the year, and this story will wind it's way into my book, The Moses We Need.

But as it is, we should thank God together that He has done this great thing for us, granted us success, and has helped us move forward into the zone to get great things done, together. Thank you so much everyone who has contributed to this passion project! And I mean that as the gospel message means it...

Bless you all in this coming year...

Let me know what you think of our first year of Media Moses, 2023, and of our upcoming goals for 2024. Let me know if there's any questions you have or if you'd like me to expound further on some aspect of this plan.

Please comment down below (with subscription) or on our social media!