As the year draws to a close, it’s time to take stock of the year gone by, and look ahead at the one(s) to come!
THE YEAR GONE BY
Wrapping Up Trench (January, 2023)
The year began by concluding the Trench series. Designed to offer Christian insight into the Postmodern Culture Wars, I’d been working on the concept for about a year and a half and had invested a lot of time, energy and hope into it. It felt good to finally complete this huge project. If you haven’t seen it yet, you can get started by clicking the video on the right. The links for the book and download are available below:
BUY THE BOOK | DOWNLOAD THE SERIES
Upgrades (February, 2023)
Something I’ve always struggled with and which I feel has held The Fuel Project back over the years is poor production values. I’m a great believer in doing the best you can with whatever you have in any given moment—God can use even our most stumbling efforts—and I can say that over the years, I was doing the best I could. However, after 9 years recording in a cramped loft with the most basic equipment imaginable, in 2022 I made the leap to a new space with the dream of better lighting, better audio, and a more welcoming environment that would facilitate the message. In short, I felt I’d reached a point where I hoped I could do more.
With The Fuel Project I want to build something of true and lasting value. Hopefully something that will perhaps even keep bringing people to Jesus after I’m gone from this earth. The truth is I don’t know if it will. All I know is that when I meet Jesus in person, I just want to be able to say that I did the best I could. I gave him everything I had. I held nothing back. Whatever capabilities, resources and talents he gave me, I tried to maximise their potential and use them for his glory. (Matthew 25:14-30)
To keep doing the best I can in the hope of creating something of lasting value, I spent February designing and upgrading the new studio space and investing in better equipment—especially lighting and a microphone. (I read somewhere that bad audio is the number one reason why people won’t watch a video on YouTube.) To keep the channel moving during this period, I recorded some random bits and pieces that had been on my mind. For example, I told the story of how I prayed for a broken phone and it began working again (see right). “An Invitation…” is notable because it’s the first time I used the new microphone and you can hear the difference in quality compared to the phone story.
Around this time, I also made all the previous video series available for digital download. A useful bit of house-keeping.
Answers Season Three (March - August, 2023)
With the studio upgraded, the next task was to finish Answers Season Three. I’d started the first two episodes in 2022 but to complete it took us right through to August, 2023. It was a really interesting season with lots of good, varied questions. We covered the unfolding events in Asbury, discussed what true revival looks like, what it means to “test the spirits” and how to hear from God. We looked into denominations, baptism/infant baptism, how Christians should relate to the Law of Moses in terms of observing the Sabbath, eating shellfish, and wearing clothes woven from two types of material. We also looked into forgiveness, demons, and to what extent Christians are able to use physical force to defend themselves. Thanks to everyone who sent in questions and if you want to contribute to Season 4, you can send messages to authenticfuel@gmail.com.
The Woke Inversion (September - December, 2023)
In the remaining months of the year, I wrote “The Woke Inversion - How Intersectional Theory Ruined Everything”. For more information on the book, click the video on the right. It’s available now on Amazon and you can buy it by clicking below!
Thanks to the people who have already left nice ratings and reviews. I really appreciate your encouragement.
Whenever I’ve written a book in the past, I’ve paused posting videos so that I could give it my full attention. This time however, I wanted to see if I could write while maintaining a regular video schedule on YouTube. The truth is I feel a certain pressure to keep posting—I don’t know if that’s healthy—but it helps me to feel productive. Although it was double the work load and I’m not sure I could maintain it long-term, it allowed me to explore some more random thoughts and to get into some current events on the videos, much like what I’d done back in February. We looked at the de-banking scandal, simulation theory, Islam and the life of Muhammad, Halloween, The Chosen, the alternative economy, and revisited some predictions that I’d made in previous years.
Because of the increased workload these past few months, my ability to respond to emails was really affected. Apologies to anyone who wrote to me during this period for the length of time it took to reply. However, now the book is finished, I should be better at this going forward. Speaking of going forward, here are the goals for next year and beyond.
THE YEAR(S) AHEAD
GOAL 1 - Make The Woke Inversion Video Series (Estimated January - May)
The first task for 2024 is to turn “The Woke Inversion” into a video series. There are around 20 episodes and on a weekly schedule, that should take around five months to complete. It’ll be the first one with improved audio and I have high hopes for how the message may be received as we tackle some of the biggest issues of our time.
GOAL 2 - Imagine (May - December)
I’ll probably need a little break after completing that series, but will return to get started on “Imagine.” John Lennon once sang a song by that name where he asked us to imagine a socialist utopia with no possessions, no religion and no national borders. Of course, that’s really a nightmare. However, I’d like to do something similar from a Christian perspective. I’d like to ask the world to imagine what it would look like if we truly made Jesus the Lord of our lives and applied Biblical teaching to our society. I don’t think the world actually knows what Jesus said and non-believers have a caricatured image of Christianity. I think when it’s clearly laid out however, people will see how Biblical wisdom would solve many of the problems we see before us today. I believe this will be a word in season as people become more open to the Christian message than they have been for many decades.
GOAL 3 - Go (2025?)
In truth, Imagine will probably take us into 2025. But having laid out how the gospel can save lives and reform society, the next project will be to try to implement practical action. I had a go at something like this back in 2014 with a failed project called Kindling. However, 10+ years later, I’d like to have another attempt. Inspired by the methods of perhaps the greatest Christian reformer of all time, William Wilberforce, I’d like to start a movement that encourages church home groups to impact local communities around the world. The plan is to implement a program of true discipleship and create a 21st century version of what we see in Acts. I’ve just finished reading “Real Christianity” by William Wilberforce so am particularly enthused about the vision for this at the moment.
GOAL 4 - Untitled Book/Series on Discipline (2025-26?)
Having established what it means to be a disciple, I’ve got a rough idea of a project that will talk about the discipline of discipleship. In amongst this, there are also some older series I’d like to re-make using better production values as well, such as the Revelation study guide. The next season of Answers videos is on the agenda at some point. I also want to speak to everyone about Know Your Enemy again and do a little update there. Lots of work to get through if possible!
AND FINALLY…
To wrap this up, I want to thank everyone who has prayed for this ministry and encouraged me over this past year. It’s difficult to express what it means to hear all this is really making a difference. Thanks also to everyone who has watched, liked, shared and commented on social media. These simple things help with algorithms and make the posts more visible to others. The YouTube channel subscriber count, which is the main growth metric for the channel, has risen to around 88,655 at the time of writing so it’s getting close to 100,000! That would be a huge milestone if we could hit that figure in the near future. YouTube’s analytics report that around 33.8% of people watching the videos regularly haven’t subscribed yet so if you’re one of them, please do! It’s completely free and doesn’t commit you to anything, but it means you’re more likely to see new posts when they’re uploaded. Indeed, you can subscribe to any of the Fuel Project social media accounts by clicking the relevant logos below.
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Finally, a special thank you to the financial supporters of The Fuel Project, without whom, this ministry couldn’t exist. Because many of the videos are counter-cultural and not considered advertiser friendly by YouTube, and because I switch off mid-roll ads so they don’t distract from the message, ad revenue alone is not enough to keep the channel going. For that reason, patrons and donors are vital and I can’t thank you enough for your help. It’s bearing fruit. Currently 189 people have written directly to say they became a Christian through The Fuel Project.
If you’d like to become a patron and support the work here, you can do so from as little as $2 a month on Patreon. If you would prefer an alternative platform, I have also recently launched a GiveSendGo page. It’s similar to Patreon but it’s operated by Christians. Clicking either of the logos will take you to our respective fund-raising pages. One-time and recurring donations are also possible through the website at thefuelproject.org by clicking the “Donate” button at the top of the screen. Also via PayPal at authenticfuel@gmail.com. Thank you!
I’ve debated with myself about whether to include this information but although subscribers have been rising consistently, patron support has slowly dropped by around 1/3 in the past couple of years. Indeed, only around 0.2% of subscribers are currently active patrons. Times are hard for everyone at the moment so this is completely understandable and for this reason, I’ve scaled back some of the ambitions for the future. However, even if we could get up to around 0.5% of subscribers becoming $2 patrons, that would make a huge difference, brighten the future, and open up some opportunities.
I’m going to take a break until January now so with that in mind, I want to wish you a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! I hope you have a blessed and happy time over the holidays and I’ll see you all again in 2024! Thank you again for all your support this year.
God bless
Mark Fairley