Saturday, October 15, 2005

Podcasting and the Gospel

I have to admit: When I start to explore the possibilities of technology, I feel like a little kindergardener. Needless to say, I am way behind the curve. I try to stay up but just keep getting lapped.
My newest technological adventure: Podcasting. I saw links on several sites to podcasts and thought, "Probably have to have an iPod to take advantage of that." Well, I've been thinking of getting my wife an iPod (which is code for: get her an iPod so I can use it), so I decided to find out what exactly is podcasting.
Here is my basic understanding of podcasting: Podcasting is a feature of iTunes (just a program that organizes music) that will download radio broadcasts as new ones appear. In other words, when you "set up" podcasting, it will find the broadcasts that you want and download them for you as often as you want. The beauty of podcasting lies in the fact that it saves time: you no longer have to actually go find the broadcast and download it yourself.
So, the two radio programs that I am currently podcasting are: Desiring God radio with John Piper and the Albert Mohler radio program. Both of these radio programs broadcast 5 times a week. I used to go to these sites every now and then and right click on the current programs, chose "save as," and then decide where to save them on my computer. I would then burn them on cds in order to listen to them while driving. Now, all I do is open iTunes, and chose "Burn Disc" because the newest radio programs are already there.
Podcasting is serving me by always having available God-centered radio programs. I wonder what normal people use podcasting for? News programs? Talk Radio shows?

If you use podcasting, what do you podcast?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am actually looking in to podcasting the METRO 180 services each week. I just recently purchase the new video ipod and am exploring the new video podcasting.

Matthew Westerholm said...

nice blog, Justin! Here's post I made of good Christian podcasts . . .

http://retro-evangelical.blogspot.com/2005/08/podcasts.html

Included are Ravi Zacharias and Covenant Life Church (Harris & Mahaney). Also, check out Mark Driscoll's church in Seattle. They podcast messages and original songs.