Mike Schmitz

4 years ago today, Joe Buhlig and I published the first episode of Bookworm. Fun fact: we hadn’t met each other yet when we started the podcast (we met later that month in person at Macstock). We originally started the podcast because we both wanted to read more and need a little help to do it consistently. The accountability and positive peer pressure of having to show up and talk about a book every two weeks has helped me firmly establish a reading habit, so mission accomplished.

A lot has happened over the last four years. We’ve both been through some rough times, and there where periods where we weren’t sure if we were going to be able to keep it going. Life happens. There have been times when we’ve missed our scheduled publish dates due to job changes, health issues, and the like. I’m grateful to my co-host Joe Buhlig for sticking with it, and for all of the listeners who have shown their support for the show. I’ve grown a ton because of the podcast over the last four years, and believe I am a better person today because of it.

Personally, I get a lot out of making the podcast and would probably do it even if nobody listened. But I’m proud of and inspired by the community that has sprung up around this little side project and extremely thankful that folks continue to show up. And a special thanks to the Premium Club members who are willing to give us a couple bucks a month to help keep the lights on – you all rock!

Last week, I shared a video walking through my thought process from the notes I took during my pastor’s sermon. People seemed to like it, so I decided to do the same thing again this week.

Here’s the image of the sketchnote if you just want to see that with no explanation.

This is an experimental post for me about the thought process that goes into creating the sketchnotes I take of my pastor’s sermons. I never really thought these would be interesting to anyone but me, but slowly I’ve been changing my mind about that based on some feedback lately from people who have asked to see them. Shoutout to Bodie Quirk who convinced me to record this short video about the process.