Simple Podcasting for Churches

This page is for basic instructions about podcasting in the church.

Comment on this page about content on this page, but make suggestions at the connected blog post here: Looking for Podcast / Vidcast Information.

A Philosophy of Podcasting:
Podcasting is another route for getting your message to the world. Remember that Churches are producers of of important content.

  • May cut into sermon CD sales, but that isn’t a problem unless that is a primary revenue stream.
  • Start with the sermon and then move into other areas like lectures, classes, or even messages recorded specifically for the web site.

Who should be in charge of the Podcast?

  • A podcast can only be successful if someone in your church is truly dedicated to doing it. The person providing the content should be completely sold on the idea, and the person managing it should be dedicated to the task. Otherwise, it will quickly sink in quality and become a burden.

Obtaining the Audio: The most important thing is to obtain good quality audio at the start. This will be better for editing, it will compress better, and it will sound better. For your worship services you can hook directly into the soundboard and record to a CD, Computer, or Digital Audio Recorder.

Editing the Audio:

  • Garageband on the Mac (part of iLife - $79).
  • Audacity with an MP3 encoder on Windows, Mac, or Linux.
  • If you just need to get it off of a CD you can use CDEX, iTunes, or Windows Media Player.

Publishing your Content

Very Important: Tagging Your Files.

  • Proper file naming and tagging makes it easier for your users to track the content.
  • It should be consistent and informative.

Example 1: Podcast_Name-Series_Name-Sermon#-Sermon_Title.mp3

When someone sorts their podcast by file name your messages will be grouped together apart from other podcasts and then sorted by the series name and number with proper information about the message readily available.

Example 2: Podcast_Name-YYYYMMDD-Title.mp3

If you don’t have series then include the date with the year first followed by the 2 digit month and the 2 digit day. This will improve sorting and provide useful information about when the podcast was created. Including a useful title will also make it easier for people to know the content.

  • Tagging is information included inside the file for the computer to understand. This is the additional information you see when hovering the mouse over the file. Stuff like title, author, year, genre, etc. If your editing software doesn’t add the tags then you can use something like FixTag (requires Java) or MP3Tag.

Online Resources for Distribution

  • The iTunes Store is a popular means for getting your podcast noticed, all it provides is advertising and easy eased subscription for iTunes and iPod users.
  • Feedburner is one of the best ways to manage your podcast feed.
  • You can create community discussion podcasts with Skypecasting or Talk Shoe.

Copyright Issues You only have the right to post content you create or have been given permission to use.

  • There is a good episode from the Creative Synergy Podcast on Copyright & the Church.
  • Don’t record the music from your service, it isn’t worth the hassle to get permission for everything. The rules for posting online are different from those for selling on CD.
  • If you use music, get a musician to perform something they created or get something from a creative commons or freely available music source such as the Podsafe Music Network.

Podcasts you might enjoy:

  • Church Tech Talk from Southeast Christian Church
  • Geeks and God
  • Church IT Discussions is a podcast chat done as a round table / call-in program online.
  • Ravi Zacharias provides a good example of a daily teaching podcast.
  • Creative Synergy: Has good content, but don’t hold your breath between episodes. This serves as a good example that having regular episodes is a solid element in a good podcast.

Other Resources:

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