Podcasting as Discipleship

“A podcast?”  

One of my elders looked at me skeptically. It was January of 2020, and I was trying to cast a vision for why a weekly podcast, hosted by our pastoral staff, could be another avenue for discipleship in our local church, Shades Valley Community Church (EFCA) in Homewood, Alabama. 

As our conversation continued, I realized he couldn’t see how a podcast might be used for local church ministry. I might as well have said, “I’d like to try and become a celebrity pastor with a national presence.” Still, I truly believed podcasting could be an impactful tool for discipleship and connection within our church. Four years later, I no longer just believe—I’ve seen it happen.  

Armed with three microphones and a basic podcasting bundle, Brad Brown (associate pastor), John-Mark Dorough (worship and communication pastor) and I flew blind into the podcasting world. We did not fully know what we wanted to do, but we knew why we wanted to do it.  

Shades Valley is a beautiful community of faith, but like many churches today, we only gather for Sunday morning worship, community groups and the occasional special event. Gone are many of the discipleship and fellowship avenues of my childhood: Sunday school, evening worship and Wednesday night supper, to name a few. Through the years, we've found Sunday morning alone cannot bear the entire weight of discipleship and connection. We needed a place for missionary updates, personal testimonies, deep dives into specific topics and theological reflection on current events, among many other things.  

Instead of creating new, on-campus meetings that a limited number of people could attend, we wanted to take discipleship to our church. Podcasting provided the perfect platform for enabling discipleship in people’s homes, in their cars, where they exercised and during whatever time they could find during the week. 

After a few trial episodes, we developed some convictions that defined our direction and gave us momentum. Those convictions are reflected in the opening tagline of every episode: “You’re listening to Shades Midweek, a podcast where we talk about theology, culture and all things Shades.” 

How we shaped the podcast 

First, theology. We wanted the podcast to be a place for some theological deep dives. Every pastor knows that you can’t fit everything into a Sunday morning sermon, but a podcast provides an open-ended format to explore all the things left on the cutting room floor.   

Further, you can tackle topics that come up within the life of your church but don’t fit into the current sermon series. For instance, one Sunday, during a time of congregational prayer, we had a young woman speak in tongues. Instead of pausing the sermon series I was doing through the Book of Judges, I did several podcast episodes about spiritual gifts. The podcast helps us tackle theological discipleship, engaging topics with more frequency and immediacy than Sunday morning allows. 

Second, culture. American culture moves at a lightning pace, and the issues we face demand thoughtful theological reflection. We wanted the podcast to be a place where we could talk politics, music, movies, social media and Christian witness in the public square. Not only that, but we also wanted our people to hear from other leaders and thinkers who may never be available on a Sunday but could easily call in for a midweek phone interview.  

You’d be surprised how accessible many Christian authors, thinkers and speakers are to local congregations via podcasting. We’ve had the opportunity to interview Collin Hansen, Justin Giboney and Isaac Adams, just to name a few. Many members of our congregation have told me how these interviews have challenged and changed their thinking. Further, I continually point members and visitors to these episodes as supplemental material for our conversations about cultural questions. It’s like having a personalized resource library for our church. 

Third, all things Shades. From the beginning, we aimed to make the podcast for our local congregation. More than anything else, that guides our content and format. We’re not concerned about broad appeal. We embrace the particularities of our congregation and don’t shy away from references that would only be understood by members of Shades. We use the podcast as a place to talk about what is going on in our body, give updates, read emails sent in by members, and interview missionaries, EFCA leaders and our own church members.  

Shortly after the podcast began, COVID restrictions set in, and the podcast became a lifeline of connection. This led us to start our most popular ongoing series, “Meet a Member,” where we interview a church member about their life. We've seen these episodes translate to deeper real-life relationships, including the relationships between the congregation and the pastors.  

Brad, John-Mark and I are all good friends, and we decided early on just to be ourselves on the podcast. That means we joke around...a lot. A significant portion of each episode is dedicated to us catching up, talking about our families, recommending books, albums and everything in between. All of it is infused with sarcastic banter. This has allowed the congregation to get to know us on a deeper level and see the dynamics of our friendship. Basically, it’s like every member of the church gets to spend an hour a week hanging out with the pastors.  

Far from replacing real relationships with something digital and disconnected, the podcast has fostered deeper face-to-face connections by opening another window into each other’s lives.

Just last week I got coffee with someone who recently attended our membership class. When I asked him what drew him to Shades, he mentioned the podcast. He learned about it during his first visit and began listening to get a sense for our community.  

He said the “Meet a Member” episodes helped him get to know Shades Valley and made conversations with members easier when he met them on Sundays. He said the same thing about sitting down to coffee with me. Instead of a mysterious, intimidating figure he only heard preach once a week, I was a real person with whom he knew he could connect. This is just one of many examples where I have seen people connect, converse and deepen relationships over the podcast. 

As for my elder, his skepticism gave way to support. He even let us interview him for a “Meet a Member” episode and subsequently experienced deeper connection with the congregation. He told me how, for the next few weeks, people would come up to him to talk about things they connected with from his life story, which led to the deepening of relationships and the formation of new ones. 

Starting your podcast 

I highly recommend podcasting as a ministry for your local church if you feel called to pursue it. The time and financial investments are well worth it. It’s affordable and takes less time than you might think. One meeting is enough to plan out the episodes each quarter, and recording the podcast takes about two hours each week. Editing, publishing and promoting the podcast takes roughly an hour, making podcasting time three hours a week. This, of course, is an example of what works for us; your podcast, depending on how you design it, may require different time commitments. 

If you want to get started, you can read this quick guide we put together. 

To hear one of our podcast episodes, give Shades Midweek a listen or email us with any questions at midweek@shadesvalley.org.  

Perhaps, we’ll take an entire episode to answer questions about using podcasting as a ministry. As we like to say at the conclusion of every episode, “Here at Shades Midweek, you’re part of the conversation.”