podcasting?

Back in October 2007 is the first mention I can find of thinking about starting a podcast. My friend and one of my heroes Trent Wheeler and I tried to start one - Trent’s a visionary. He is most excellent when he is dreaming and pressing forward into creative ways and fields! But ultimately we were both too busy to make it happen.

In August of ’08 Adam Faughn ran a note that he was thinking of starting a podcast. Adam and I met in early September and went live with iPreach’s first airing on September 25, 2008. The first several months were rather rocky on the technical side but we are right now closing in on our 100th podcast.

For several years churches have podcasted their services or sermons (SM does). We wanted to do something different. Something that would serve people in ministry. So our tag line is “designed to aid, enlighten, entertain and equip those who preach”. To put it mildly Adam and I have had fun and we hope done some good stuff for those in ministry. We’ve gotten to interview some great people, we’ve gotten to do some neat live audience events and we’ve even gotten to report some breaking brotherhood news a few times. It is a lot of fun.

Right now something pretty neat is happening, other sorts of podcasts are popping up. And I couldn’t be happier. Let me tell you about three “new kids on the block”:

Caleb, Joe and Wesley - Engage, Where Christ and Culture Meet. This is sort of a podcasting dream team. They take various cultural issues and discuss them.

Rusty, Barry and Craig - Student Minister Podcast. These fellows had their first podcast Monday. They dealt with apologetics. I’m speculating this will be pretty heady stuff from some of the bright guys I know.

Paul, Daniel and Ben - iMinistry Podcast. This podcast is scheduled to “launch” this weekend. From the quality of the three hosts it will be excellent. I think they are planning on focusing on youth ministry. But I’ll be listening!

Just a few notes to those who might like to know.
First - podcasting is technologically pretty simple. I strongly recommend www.talkshoe.com

Second - I’m excited about these new podcasts. Here’s what sets podcasting apart as pretty unique. On the radio, you pick a station that transmits stuff you are interested in, i.e. Sports, Politics, Country, Rock, etc. But even then you have to listen to a lot that you don’t want. ESPN is all sports all the time - but it may be bowling they are showing - yuck, bowling on TV! Here’s what makes this great - you get to listen to what you want to. So, if you like technology - you can subscribe (they’re all free) to tech podcasts - if you like fishing you’ll find ones on fishing. So I don’t see our four programs in any kind of competition but as complimentary of each other. If you like Engage, you’ll probably like iPreach, if iPreach then you’d probably enjoy iMinistry...etc. So subscribe to them all. You can do it either through www.talkshoe.com or iTunes. There are still some limitations with TalkShoe that I don’t like but I’ve not found a better host yet.

Let me close with three things that, in my opinion, make a podcast worth the time to listen:
1. Consistency: If you start, stay with it. We produce at least one a week and several times a year we’ll do two in a week. This week we will be live from Lads to Leaders at 10am and then do a live audience on that night of the big singing. It is very frustrating to me to enjoy a show and it suddenly disappear or be so sporadic that I find myself not listening.
2. Content: If you don’t have good material you are sunk. This is the meat, this is what people listen for.
1. Comedy: Because of both the demographics as well as the age of podcasting audiences they will want to laugh with you. I’d recommend you keep it as light as possible.

I could go on, but this one has already gotten long. Sometime I may share a list of the podcast I enjoy...you can share your’s or your thoughts below.