This is an I-Heart podcast.

This is solvable.

I'm Ronald Young Jr.

They have these levitating neon drummer boys at their

Christmas service where these dudes floating, playing these marching snare drums. According to Gallup,

in 1999, 70% of U.S. adults belong to a church, synagogue, or mosque. In 2018, it was down to 50%. In 2020, it was only 47%. So it's not surprising that some houses

of worship are increasingly going to greater and greater lengths to keep members engaged.

I happened to be watching this random worship video and noticed a worship leader, not even a pastor, wearing a pair of

yeasies that were worth like 800 bucks. That's the voice of Ben Kirby. He's a former Marine, a Texan,

a devout Christian, and most importantly, a shoe enthusiast or a sneaker head. The reason I know

about sneakers in general is because I spent some time buying and

selling sneakers for this.

So like that's how I know about this market.

And to me, the shoe is worth what people are willing to pay for it.

And so from the beginning, I've never said, this guy has paid $800 for these pair of shoes.

What I've said is that this guy's wearing a pair of shoes that's

worth $800. Kirby runs an Instagram account called Preachers and Sneakers, which has a very simple

purpose. It runs a picture of a faith leader in front of their congregation, most of the time from a

megachurch. And next to the picture is the amount that the shoes that they're

wearing cost. How much is too much? I didn't start off wanting to be an activist or a discussion

leader for a pretty complex discussion about like money and modern Christianity and celebrity

and that kind of thing. But after doing this for like two and a half years, I continuously

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