People are massively disappointed in me and here's why. In 2019, we lost everything. Our house, our clothes, our possessions, and perhaps worse of all, we lost our peace. Just four weeks before our first child was to be born, we bought a house that had a hidden problem. The situation was definitely bad, but I believe that we overreacted. So what did we do? We ran to mommy and daddy. As the scripture says, the wicked flee when no one pursues.
But the righteous are bold as a lion, and you might be saying, Joe, isn't that a little bit harsh to refer to yourself as wicked? Well, honestly, I truly do believe that this issue happened as a chastisement from the Lord for years. I've been living in disobedience for years. I'd refused to repent of 1
certain sin. That doesn't mean that every time something bad happens it means the Lord is disciplining us. But in this instance, just like Joseph's brothers, you remember when Joseph was sold by his brothers to Egypt and then many years passed by and Joseph was disguised and his brothers found themselves in a sticky situation and what thought came to their mind. Instantly they had a guilty conscience and instantly they said this is because we sold our brother Joseph into Egypt.
In other words, but they knew that God was dealing with them from that sin many years ago. And so when we are being disciplined by the Lord, I believe that there isn't a doubt in our mind. We know for certain that this has happened because we have done wrong. So here I am with my wife, my newborn baby, practically homeless, living in my childhood bedroom at my parents house. And then what happened to the whole world in 2020? You must stay at home. We'll postpone unnecessary
travel. We face this unprecedented challenge the toughest year of our lives. You guessed it. What was supposed to be a temporary situation turned into one year of anxiety and uncertainty as we just could not sell this house that we bought. And yet, in that year, I've never walked closer to God in all of my life. I remember when we were all confined to only being allowed in our own house.
In our own back garden, I remember walking in my father's garden and it felt like I was walking with another father, my heavenly Father. There was times when it felt like God was so close to me that I could just reach out my hand and touch him and something else crazy happened. Ironically, this is also the time when many of you discovered
my YouTube channel. You see, I've been making videos since 2016, but in 2020, it was almost as if there was a sort of peculiar blessing that fell upon my ministry. When I was preaching in my dad's clothes with my dad's shed in the background, there was very little production value, and yet it seemed like God turned up every single week. Lives were being touched. People were saying that they've been lukewarm for many years, and yet God was drawing them
back. And it wasn't Joe Kirby that was doing anything. No, it was the Holy Spirit. He was speaking into people's lives. Sometimes I watch those old videos and I get emotional because I see back then there was a peace. It was a joy, if you like a sparkle in my eyes that God was doing something despite the difficult time we were in. And I'll be honest, in 2022, in 2023, even I've tried to recreate those videos. I've tried to make similar
videos, but the truth is this. You cannot manufacture a move of God. And as much as I tried to go back and to speak those same messages, that was a special season and that window, once it was open, but now it shuts. And I can't go back to that time as much as I try. So why are people disappointed in me?
But back then I used to make videos for Christians, particularly speaking into the areas of holiness and encouragement, because that was the place that God had taken me to. And those were the messages that God had burned on my heart. But it eventually became clear that that door had shut now, and I needed to return to making videos for nonbelievers again. You see, after all, I'm not a pastor, I'm not a Bible teacher. I'm just a street preacher.
I'm just an evangelist. And my calling is to win souls for Jesus. And at the same time when I had this feeling, this sense that I needed to be seeking to win souls for the lost men of God, men who I look up to and trust, they also at the same time said, come on Joe, let's start making those videos again from believers. After all the need is massive and there's a harvest out there of lost sinners who need to hear about Jesus. So you use your platform to preach the gospel from.
But here we are today, and I say this in God's grace alone. There is a huge amount of Christians who subscribe to my channel and what did they subscribe for? They wanted long form contents. They wanted Christian living videos and edification for the Saints and what are they getting instead? Celebrities, strong warning messages, and a plethora of 62nd shorts. And if that's you, I want to say sorry.
I genuinely do apologize to those of you who perhaps feel cheated or perhaps are disappointed and you say this isn't what I subscribe for. Joe, because I know that this YouTube channel right now, it wouldn't be here if the Lord had not used you guys to watch the channel week by week and to leave encouraging messages and to support me and to keep me going when at points I felt like I couldn't keep going. So please just hear this apology.
On the flip side, however, I know some of you, you enjoy anything that we put out and you're the type of Christine that says OK, yes, I know that these videos are aimed on believers, but you can never hear the gospel too many times. Just keep making the messages that you feel cold to make and I'll keep watching the videos. And if that's you, I want you to know I am really grateful to you. Because when you watch the videos, then YouTube sees Okay.
This video is holding people's interest and it sends the video out in some more homes and that then gives the video or the message the opportunity to reach more lost souls who have never heard the gospel, who have never heard about the Savior who loved them and died for them. So take all of that into your mind and now want to say I'm going to make 5 changes to this YouTube channel. And also at the end of the video I have a giveaway for 400 people.
So please stick around because I think some of you will really appreciate this giveaway. The first change that's happening is something that isn't changing and that's that we're going to keep the videos ad free. The reason I'm mentioning this is you might remember a couple of weeks ago I put out a community post saying that for some strange reason ads had started popping up on my YouTube channel. Even though I'm not signed up to the Google ad partnership for some reason.
There were adverts in front of my videos. So I contacted YouTube and within a day they took all of the adverts down South. Can I just say, can we all just take a moment right now to appreciate YouTube's kindness in doing this? You see, technically from YouTube standpoint, I'm a big waste of space because I don't put adverts in front of my videos. I'm earning YouTube no money. It's a bit like I'm playing in YouTube sandbox, totally rent free.
And yet every single week, what does YouTube do? It pushes out my video to millions of people. If this was the television networks, if this was the BBC, there's no chance I could say the things I say and reach the audience I reach. And yet YouTube allows me to do this totally for free. And I personally believe that YouTube is the platform that gives the most freedom of speech for Christians, for people to preach the gospel. Because you have heard my messages before.
You know that I don't compromise on the things that I say. And other platforms, they pride themselves like Twitter. They say no, we are now the platform where you can have total freedom of speech. And yet what do I have to do? I have to pay Elon Musk $100 to get verified. And then once I'm verified, then Twitter says, OK, now your messages can rank high in suggestions. Now your messages can be promoted, but if I don't pay the
$100, well then I'm hidden. And the last time I looked, that kind of defeats the point of freedom of speech, if you see what I'm saying. So as Christians we are very good at complaining, at protesting, but very often we do forget to say thank you when a good thing hits us between the face. And I just want to say thank you right now to YouTube publicly for allowing me to reach so many people. The second change is that from now on my channel will totally focus on unbelievers.
Let me give you an example. I might make a video and I might say if you see this, you should be totally terrified. And then I'll look at the comments section and I'll see Christians writing messages like this. Joe, you're just fear mongering. How dare you tell people they should be scared? I have nothing to fear. I have the Lord Jesus Christ. And you're right. If you have Jesus Christ, you have nothing to fear in Christ Jesus's arms. You're totally safe.
But there are people who are making the video for that are not totally safe. There are people who should be terrified for is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of an angry God. And those people need to hear the urgency of this message. Those people need to hear these warning signs and there has to be an element where I am preaching quite hard line to get their attention.
So if you do see those videos and you're confused, ask yourself the question, is this video aimed at me a Christian? Or could this apply to another group of people, the people who have not yet met the risen Jesus? Another example is YouTube shorts. Now I know many of you cannot stand YouTube shorts. You really just want to see a nice long form video over 10 minutes long with a well thought out argument. But the reality is when we look at the younger generation, can I call them Gen. Z?
All the content they're consuming right now is YouTube shorts, tick tocks. They just watch short form content. And actually something kind of exciting has happened in our own family. Emma's sister who is only 18 years old, my sister-in-law. For years we've been telling her about the Lord Jesus Christ and she's had very little interest, but only in the last few weeks she's been watching Christian videos on and Tick Tock, just
short form videos. And those videos have given her a desire to read the Bible. So now she's meeting up with a friend, reading the Bible, highlighting the Bible and now she's even said I'd really like to come to church with you this coming weekend. And so as I preach, she's going to be sat in the congregation. Now none of this would have ever happened if she didn't find a Tick Tock and I know some of the
videos that she's been watching. And when you would see those videos, you would call those videos clickbasy, but you'd say it's nothing more than sensationalism. But the fact is this. My sister-in-law was not ready to watch an indepth video, an exposition on Ephesians, or an unpacking of the doctrine of the Trinity. No, something simple. Something, dare I say, clickbaity. Like a picture of little Uzi verts. That's what got her attention.
And from that, the Lord planted a seed where she had a desire to learn more. Listen to me, I've not forgotten about the giveaway, but I do want to tell you about the third change, which actually provides a solution to the second change. I've decided that I do actually want to try and create more Christine videos, but on my second channel, and you can see a link to it in the description. That way there's no confusion at Who is this channel trying to reach?
No, this channel, My second channel will be trying to reach Christians only, and there is a sense of guilt. I know I shouldn't feel guilt. See, I should never feel guilty. And I know that no one is indispensable. So you don't need me to give you Christian videos. But the same time, I do know there have been people who've reached out and have said, Joe, I just miss your old videos. And so I want to try this. I want to lean upon the Lord and say, Lord God, I come to you empty.
And I just asked that you'd fill me and give me something to say to your flock to your people and we'll see what happens. I will warn you though that because there are limited funds and there is limited time, these videos are going to be a little rough and ready. They won't be well produced like the videos on my main channel. But that's actually how I first started as I was talking about filming in my dad's garden.
And sometimes that's actually when God works best, when we just come to him with nothing and then there can be no sorts of pride that can be filled there. No, we just lean upon the Lord and ask him to turn up and to do all the work. So if you're interested, please do check out that Channel. It's just my name. It's called Joe Kirby. And again, there is a link in the description. I also do hope that we'll be able to do more Zoom Bible studies.
For those of you who signed up to my newsletter, you know that we did want a couple of months ago and that was a really precious time. So if you also would like to be part of that, please go to offthecurb.co.uk and sign up to the newsletter and there'll be a chance where we can study the word together and just talk to one another, ask each other questions and it really is a wonderful time of fellowship.
OK, the 4th and final change before I tell you about the giveaway is I'm actually going to be posting less videos. Some of you will remember back in January I made a video telling you all that I actually burnt out. I've since deleted that video because I know at the time I wasn't in the best frame of mind and I was a little bit over emotional and so I took it down because I thought maybe some of the things I said were a bit too raw and perhaps I shouldn't have
said some of those things. In fact, just to be honest, I was a little bit embarrassed. So that's gone now. But if you want an update, since then I've been posting less
videos. I've not been posting every week and I've had more time with my family and children and it's just been wonderful and the joy of YouTube has come back, the joy of Ministry has come back and so really I'd be a bit silly to go back on that treadmill and trying to sustain doing one video in depth of high quality every single week. However, the videos that I am trying to make, I'm trying to do with all of my mites and I've actually got some big news for
everyone. I've never done this before but our next video on the 19th of August is going to be our first documentary. I don't want to give too much away, but I will say it is going to step on some toes and for nearly three days after I filmed it, I felt very sad inside about what is going to happen to the world if this really does come into fruition. So on the 19th of August, make sure you do not miss the first ever Off the Curb Ministries documentary. So over to you now let me know,
are you still on board? If you are, please write in the comment box. If you're not, please also write that in the comment box, because I want to remain teachable and I really would appreciate your feedback on how you feel this channel should go, what direction you feel it should go in the future. Because after all, I'm just a normal, regular average Joe like you except for your names. Probably not, Joe. But you know what I'm trying to
say, don't you? I need help and I need guidance, and I just hope that you'll be able to help me on this journey as we walk in this and try and bring glory to our mighty God and the gospel that He is commissioned to us. OK, here is the moment you've all been waiting for. Let me tell you about our giveaway. There are actually 2 giveaways. The first one is for those who subscribe to our channel who are based in the USA and the 2nd
giveaway is for everyone. OK, firstly, if you are based in the USA where our supplier is 10 of those the company that we're working with, we want to give you a free copy of my book 100 Pure Thoughts. We actually now in our book fund have enough copies for 400 people to receive a free copy and know originally we said it's only if you can't afford a copy.
But right now, because we're in a great position and we've actually run out of requests right now for people who wants a free copy, we can't even give this book away. Well, if you promise you'll read it, we'd love to bless you with that. And so if that's you, please go to ourwebsite@offthecurb.co.uk/book and then fill out our free book form at the bottom of the page. But if you're not based in the USA, we have even more exciting
news in the next few weeks. 100 Pure Thought will be available for everyone, totally free on the app you version. But this is super important. You need to remember this. It will not be titled 100 Pure Thoughts. If you want to find it, you have to put in Purify Your Mind series by Joe Kirby. So if that's something that you'd be interested in, well please do watch this space and download the app because very soon this resource is going to
be available for all. And as you know, that's been my desire all along, that I just want as many people to be pure for the Lord of Jesus Christ because it's the most precious thing when we can walk before the Lord and know that I do not have this sin that is always following me wherever I go. By the way, perhaps you're curious at why I decided to turn down $600,000 every year in YouTube Adsense. Is it because I'm already a millionaire?
Well, the answer is no. And I'll be honest, the decision is very difficult. But if you want to know the reasons why I'm going to stick by this decision, please watch this video right now.