Paid Subscriber Drive - Will you join us this next year?
Become a new member of Wear We Are as we prepare for the first 2024 debate
Dear Friends,
It feels like 2024 has already been going for quite a while, but in two days, the very first debate will take place. The GOP will have a chance to showcase (most of) its candidates with just 5 months until the nominating process officially kicks off with the Iowa caucus. As in the past, we’re excited to host a live conversation with you during the debate so that you can watch, learn and contribute to the conversation alongside other members of the community. As such, we wanted to reflect back on this newsletter a bit as 2024 really heats up…
Michael and I joined Substack on April 15, 2019 as the “Reclaiming Hope Newsletter” after a decade of engaging a small email list of friends, pastors and Christian and civic leaders weekly on some of the biggest trends and ideas in our public life. That work has evolved into our weekly post — The Top 5. After being recruited by Hamish McKenzie, one of the founders of Substack, we quickly realized that Substack was and remains a fast-growing network of writers providing insight and reflections into all kinds of subjects and areas of life. We love Substack because it gives ideas and conversations space to breathe. We think there is too much unnecessary anxiety in our politics and public life, and we’ve found our partnership with Substack helps us facilitate a community pursuing a different path.
A fun fact: 25 other Substacks (i.e. writers) officially recommend Wear We Are to their readers.
We’ve carved out our corner of Substack as a faith and politics newsletter, and we have been thrilled to build a community of readers and subscribers from all 50 US states and 59 countries. You come from all walks of life and all stages of life. We also welcome those who are not Christian, that is, those who are members of other faiths or no faith at all. Folks who are looking for expertise and deep experience in religion and politics come to this newsletter, and based on the stats and analytics we see each week — our paid and free subscribers love what we’re providing.
After seeing steady growth and healthy engagement every year, we founded the Wear We Are podcast in January 2022. We became part of the That Sounds Fun Network in August 2022 and we are the news and politics show for that network. We’ve had a ton of fun helping you navigate daily news with prayer through the daily Morning Five and diving deep on key issues every Sunday. We’ve hosted ad partners like Thistle Farms, Brooklinen, and The Chosen (n.b. our discount links are active for both Thistle Farms and Brooklinen - “WEARWEARE” and “WEAR” respectively). The podcast and the That Sounds Fun Network have been a highlight for us this past year, both personally and vocationally.
Just a week ago, Wear We Are was named a “bestseller” by Substack, meaning that we’ve built a thriving and active community of paid subscribers.
What this doesn’t quite capture is how much our paid subscribers matter to us — to both me and Michael — in that we’re not just building a community of people who are interested in the intersection of faith and politics, but of people who are interested in a different kind of engagement of politics: one that is more hopeful than cynical, involved but not overly so, focusing on the broader picture rather than narrow culture wars, and happily looking to Jesus as our guide to engaging current events, politics, and public life. You’ve heard Michael say it all the time: politics is not ultimate and also you — as a Christian or not — have a special obligation to our political system because you *do* hold power — the power to vote, among other kinds of civic participation, whether you’re here in the US or in most countries around the world.
Now, let me get to the point of this post. We want to do a paid subscriber drive this week.
We’ve set an ambitious goal: 50 new paid subscribers.
With the 2024 election hitting a new milestone this week, we want to grow our community while also ensuring sustainability for Michael and I as we pour ourselves into this work. We give dozens of hours each week to curate and cultivate Wear We Are — both here on Substack and on the podcast.
For our paid subscription posts, we have an average open rate of 70% — that’s extremely high for the industry. This means our paid subscribers faithfully engage Wear We Are and we consistently deliver high-quality content. This isn’t one of those situations where you hand us your hard-earned money and then we don’t deliver. You’ll want to open our emails each week.
Here is what you can expect as a paid subscriber:
Weekly “Political Brief” post sent out on Mondays, which I’ve started to call “The Skimm for those interested in religion and politics.”
Weekly “Faith in the News” post sent out on Fridays. This is our paid subscribers favorite weekly post.
Weekly Top 5 post on the latest trends, ideas, and human stories of the week. The best, most recent essays out there in the world.
Support the Morning Five and Sunday episodes of the podcast
Debate and State of the Union live-threads where we provide real-time commentary. This is a subscriber favorite during presidential and midterm election seasons. As I mentioned, Michael will do a live-thread this coming Wednesday for the first GOP debate.
Occasional essays and insights from Michael, especially on popular news items. Examples include popular essays such as: The Aggressor Principle in the Culture Wars, This is How To End Abortion Politics as We've Known It, The Pandemic Amnesty No One Wants, Dobbs, Accountability and the Shifting Ground Under Roe, and To Parents of Young Children
That brings us to your new investment.
We’ve lowered the subscription rate to $30 for a one-year subscription.
This is so that more folks have access to Wear We Are. We have a special discount for students with a .edu email address. You can find a subscribe button below for both.
Whether you’ve been a longtime free subscriber, or you’ve recently joined us — we ask that you consider becoming a paid subscriber. We understand many don’t have the margin to do so, but if you do, we’d really appreciate the support.
Fifty new subscribers will help us fund the time we put into this newsletter each week, especially in this 2024 election season. We’ll keep you updated on our goal over the next couple of days and we hope by this Wednesday’s live thread, we will be more than halfway to our goal.
Will you help us get there?
As always, we’re open to your commentary and questions. We love when you send us emails or message us on social media or send us questions for the podcast.
Please do pass along this post to others who you think might consider becoming subscribers. You can also “restack” this post (much like retweeting on X/Twitter) to help us get the word out. Or, you could post about it on your favorite social media platform.
Thank you for considering supporting us!
Melissa