Welcome to The Heart of Dating Podcast. Hey, it's Kate. I'm so glad you could join us this week as we try to entangle the ever-so ambiguous world of dating as a Christian. Over here in Heart of Dating, we get real as we answer some tough questions and uncover transformative ways to approach Christian dating. Oh, and you better believe we have some laughs along the way because last time I checked, the struggle is hashtag real. You know what I'm saying? Now let's get to the heart of the matter.
What is up everybody? Hey, let's go. Oh, let's go. Hey guys, this is the official trailer for season 9 of The Heart of Dating Podcast, which is coming next week. Hey, we are on here. Kate and JJ, we want to share a few things with you because guys, babe, a lot has changed. A lot has changed. What has changed, honey? A lot has changed, honey. You mop floors now. Wow. I have, guys, I have a toilet seat down. Tell them what I do. He mops.
He cleans. He vacuums. He does the dishes. He makes food. He's, you guys, in case you didn't know, we just got married. That's a whole deal. That's why he does all these things because he loves his wife so little. I love my wife. I just posted about it today. I was like, God gives his hardest battles to his toughest soldiers. And my battles are
mopping, cleaning and making sure my wife is happy. But here's a deal. We wanted to come on here and give you a little reflection of this last year, all the changes and then what to expect in season 9 and in heart of dating overall, moving forward. Okay. So season eight wild you guys, we had 1.3 million downloads on the heart of dating podcast. So crazy. We have people from over 200 countries tuning in. It's absolutely wild. And this is also
really cool. Baby you and I, JJ and I had three out of the four most successful episodes in heart of dating overall ever. Wow. Wow. Babe, what are those episodes? That's awesome. Yeah. If you guys have not listened to them, here they are. Number one, this is the number one most successful episode of all boundaries and pace. Yeah. So crazy. That was a fun one. The second one was types and attraction. And then the third one, especially if you're
new here and you want to learn was our story. That's right. So if you want to know how JJ and I met, how this all came to be like with he and I, listen to that one. But another big piece of news, which I don't think we shared with you guys yet. But in June, JJ left his job after lots of prayer and talking. Okay. JJ left his job his full time well paying job and joined heart of dating as COO and president. That's right. I walked out and I'm like,
I'm out of here. But it really was a huge act of faith as well because he left his full time job well paying job a few months before our wedding where we had a lot of bills to pay. But we really trusted God in the process. And which means we are here together to jointly serve this heart of dating community. And JJ, babe, I know you have a big heart, especially
for our men, right? Absolutely. I love serving the men. And I tell you guys the highlight of my days and weeks besides obviously being married to my wife now is the DMs and the messages I get from men just saying, bro, thank you so much. And that is like the best thing in the world because I'm a man who made a lot of mistakes and just needed to be showing the way. And that's exactly what I'm seeing with you. Do you do listening?
Yeah. So JJ has such a heart to serve them in and to some operation stuff and heart of dating. And you know, a lot of people have asked us, they're like, okay, so now you guys are married. So you're changing this podcast to be heart of marriage. And we are like, no, we are not truly that is we are like collectively every time people say that. We're like,
no, absolutely not like truly. You got to remember you guys if you're new here or if you have been here as an OG, like I started this podcast coming up on five years ago in the wake of a giant heartbreak. And before I met JJ, I was dating for 18 years. Okay. And I dated all sorts of different kinds of guys went through all sorts of different things. I've shared my story so many times here on the podcast, but my heart is for singles.
My heart is to help singles. And just because we're married now, like we plan to keep a heartbeat on the singles community throughout our marriage. Both JJ and I jointly feel called to continue to serve singles. And so just because we're married, it doesn't mean we graduated and we're like, bye guys here. We'll pass you on to somebody else. No, we truly feel called to serve you guys. And we like, I mean, some people are like, well, you
don't get it now. I'm like, how do I not get it now? Like I went through it for 18 years. I just got married. Yeah. What are you talking about? Exactly. So, okay. So that's a little, those are some things, a few other things. Facebook, we have an epic Facebook community.
This past year, it hit 10,000 people, 10,000 singles. And over the last month, month and a half, we've actually taken a sabbatical in that community to really rethink and revision and pry over like what we want to see for that community and how we want that community to thrive. And so we are rolling out a new vision for our Facebook community. Okay. So, if you've never joined, come and join us Facebook.com forward slash heart of dating, you can
request to join our Facebook community. Here's our new vision. Our Facebook group is specifically for single Christians, 18 and older who want to meet and or do life together with other single Christians and are serious about dating healthily. Our primary mission is to be a place to connect to you with other Christian singles, whether it be your new best friend or significant other, because yes, we have had marriages through friendly and
life giving conversations. Now, there's going to be way more to come on how we plan to implement this vision even more in this Facebook community. But we are so excited for this new season of our Facebook community. And we really feel passionate about that group of people. They want to tell them about the next thing that happened this year. Oh, yeah. So in May, we launched a program and we went back to school with school of dating. It
was our eight week mentorship program. And it has been a massive hit. We would literally finish up sessions with that first class shout out to the alum. Yeah. And we would just be like, man, that was so special. There's just no way that Kate and I on our own could muster up and see the transformation that happened over those eight weeks. And so this is a super intensive program. We just launched the fall. Yeah. And we sold out in two days.
And primarily, and if you guys are listening to this and you're interested, the wait list is the place to be. That's where you're going to get first access. And you're going to get our best price. So to get on the wait list, yeah, what do you do again, honey? You have to text wait list to 214 225 7772. And just so you know, if this, if you're thinking it's for you, it's eight weeks, it's we meet twice a week for two hours. It's intensive.
You get almost like 200 page workbook and essence. You get accountability, mentorship. Think of it as like three years of learning in less than three months. And you will actively be going on dates. So if you've never been on a date before and you are ready, this is going to help you do that. Like JJ and I are going to hand walk you as well as our small,
the small community that you're doing this in. And so it's not for everyone. I know not everyone can afford it either, but we really invest our time to help these students on a personal level. Yeah. And we have people on the other side of the spectrum who've been on a lot of dates. And they're just so sick and tired of dating in that way that they just were like, I refuse to be in the same place a year from now. That's right. The way
I date. Yeah. My favorite testimonial, one of our star students, her name was Sharon, said through this class, I now truly believe there are not good, but great Christian men out there. I've been able to take the pressure off dating, keep the pace. So I don't quit
dating apps after a week and enjoy the process. I have been on some of the best dates I've ever been on from the comfort of my home who knew the effectiveness of opting for a FaceTime date, rather than an in person date for a first meeting, not me until this class. That was such an awesome testimonial from Sharon. She has been on so many dates. She really was the butterfly. We saw her transform in our class. And we just love our school of
dating students. Okay. One more thing. Actually two more things. We also launched another program. It's more of a master class community. It's called the singles Academy. That launched a few months after school of dating. And what it is is it's a community of singles doing life together and growing each month, surrounding a specific theme. This month we're going through self hatred and insecurity. And every month kicks off with a master class that's
either taught by JJ and I or a expert guest speaker. We've had Jamal Miller speak. We have some awesome speakers lined up. And we go through that together in community. So you'll meet in discussion groups. You will get to talk through it with people that are in the same boat as you. It's really like the virtual singles community that your church doesn't have. Think of it as like a singles ministry, but online with all of your best
friends. We have affinity groups. We have community nights. We have meetups going on. There's so many things happening in the community. And we really pour a ton of our time to be intentional. And we talked to tons of the students as well. And it's really more community based. And it's for those people who may not be ready to like fully transform their dating life yet. Maybe they're trying to heal a bit, process some more, meet some
best friends. That's what TSA is for at the singles Academy. Yeah. Our main Travis or handsome friend Travis down in Texas representing. He said anyone else in a very busy season of life that also finds himself wanting to spend way more time on here than they actually have. Seriously, this is the most wholesome online community I've ever been a part of. I never knew the feeling of my space on a Friday night in 2005 could be topped. But here
we are. I love that. I love it. Okay, last but not least. And then we're going to tell you about season nine. Hey guys, we have our heart of dating conference coming. You've never been to a conference. You got to think about coming to a conference. Okay. Either you're new here and never been to one or you've just never come to a conference. It's really the heartbeat of our community where you get to meet others unlike ever before.
It's wild. It's amazing. Come in person. So if you want to know where it is and who we're hosting it with, you can text the word sneak peak to 214 2257772. And guess what? If you text sneak peak to that number, we're also going to let you know where it is and the dates. And then you are going to get first access to tickets at the lowest price that we're going to offer. Okay. You can tell we love this little texting situation. I know
it's so nice. Okay. So it's sneak peak to 214 2257772. I have a dumb question. What? Can you just tell them how to spell peak because I always kind of confuse myself. Yeah. Okay. No, no, wait. What? It's P E E K. What? Oh, you spelled it wrong. Okay. You know what? Whatever where you spell it sneak peak P E K or P E K. You can text either one to that number and you will get on our wait list. But it's absolutely hysterical. Okay. Now
we want to tell you about season nine. Okay. Some awesome things starting next week. Season nine of heart of dating. Here's what you can expect. Here's our vision. First and foremost, we have JJ now officially as our co-host of heart of dating. Last season was your test run baby. And guess what? You passed the test. Oh, I did. Yeah. I think I'll keep you. Well, you know, I'm COO now. So I choose to accept myself and put me in the program.
Oh my gosh. You can't do that. I'm so CEO. Oh, yeah. And what you she loves to remind me. Hey, who's the CEO? Anyway, we're so excited. Here are some other things you can expect. We're going to be doing shorter episodes on hotter, more specific dating topics. Why are we choosing to do this? Well, we have covered a lot of ground over the last eight seasons of heart of dating. I have done a lot of long episodes and interviewed a lot of amazing
people like some of those episodes have been over an hour. And you guys are champs for listening to all of them. And now what we want to do is we want to get into even more nitty gritty, smaller, nuanced questions and topics that you have. That way, you know, you can come to the podcast. You're like, what does Kate and JJ think about foundation chips? And it's a shorter episode that really hones in on that specific nitty gritty topic.
Okay. So we want to really do this to really help you more specifically. Some of the topics we're going to cover are babe, tell them. We're going to cover topics like never been kissed. Uh huh. Or one of my favorite ones, a prayer that changed our life and singleness. Yep. Another great one that's going to be really, really fun and interesting. How to tell if they are a narcissist. Yeah. And I think we're also going to talk about what about
guy and girl friendships, you know, what about that? So we're going to do smaller, more specific topics. We're going to frequently ask you guys what topics you want us to cover because that's what we care about. And that's what you're going to see here this season. And then drumroll, please, we have another surprise. JJ is going to be launching men specific mini soats on Friday. Hey, for the dudes go. JJ, what is your vision for this men's? Well,
I am so serious when I say this, we have men in the hearted dating community. Yeah. And men who are not in it yet, who are hungry for growth. They are hungry to be not good Christian men who are on mission. They want to be great Christian men who are on mission and they want to be great future husbands. So I basically said, you know what? Let's start doing Friday, mini soats for the men. And everything I say on those podcasts and those mini soats is
not going to be saying, Hey, I figured it out. Listen to me. It's going to be like, Hey, one, I messed up a lot. Here's what I did wrong. And here is if I could go back in time as a single, what I would do. So you guys don't have to make that mistake. And then two, I will be saying, Hey, listen, I don't meet the bar every day. In fact, I fail every day. But as men mean you together, here is what we're going to do to raise the bar as men.
That's right, babe. How was that? Wait, I can't wait for you to serve these guys. We have been, I can't tell you guys how much we wanted to serve more men, single men. And I'm just so thankful that God put it on JJ's heart to want to do this. And it's going to be so fun. It's going to be awesome. So we're going to get those mini soats out. So babe, I can't
wait for season nine. I know we're going to have a bunch of men running around in raccoon t-shirts, elephant, lion t-shirts, wildlife Fridays is going to be poppin. Oh, like, all right. Well, we can't wait to see you guys. Thank you for being here. We are so thrilled, truly thrilled and honored to be able to serve you. And we just have such a heart for singles because we guys have been single so, so, so long in my life. And
I just love you. I've such a heart. And it was just literally a few months ago that I was still an unmarried woman. And so we have such a heart to continue to serve you guys. And we can't wait for what's in store for this next season. Oh, yeah. Guys, season nine is going to be epic. It really is. So buckle up, send it to all your friends. It's going to get crazy up in here. Okay. Next week, we'll see you then. Let's go. Bye. Bye.