Blog Yellek

The guys over at Geeks and God have a new podcast series up on podcasting and one of the episodes deals with sermon podcasts. One of the issues I have with Christian podcasting is that I can never find the good stuff. There are thousands of churches out there that are just putting their sermon audio out there as a podcast and the Geeks and God guys explain very well why this isn’t very effective, basically because the podcasts aren’t very targeted and don’t really work for people who don’t have a connection to the church involved. Thus they are ineffective as outreach tools.

Churches doing or considering podcasting would do well to have a listen to this, I think it has some good insights.

I listen to podcasts a lot. In the car, on the way to and from work and even at home when I have to do something mindless like cleaning. With all the podcasts on my list though there are those that I will always listen to as soon as they come out, those that I wait for each week because I know that I will enjoy every minute. Here then are 10 of my favorite podcasts (in no particular order):

1. The Spiel. Talking about boardgames these guys just deliver every single fortnight. They are funny and informative with consistently good content. Their show is segment based with each segment focusing on specific games as well as a news and notes and a feedback segment. This is my favorite podcast and comes highly recommended. The Spiel also has some really interesting contests including some really hard puzzles to solve.
2. The Java Posse. This long running technology podcast about the Java programming language alternates between news and interviews. It keeps me up to date and entertained so I can do my job. My gut feel is that this cast isn’t as interesting and fresh as it used to be but it still makes my must listen to list.
3. The Two Chris’s. This political podcast is taken from a segment on the morning program my local ABC radio station and features Christopher Pyne and Chris Schatt who debate the issues of the day from Liberal and Labor perspecives respectively. I find this a really good way to keep up to date with the Australian political landscape both nationally and in South Australia.
4. The Dice Tower. Though a little less consistent in quality than The Spiel The Dice Tower still offers quality boardgame listening with top ten lists and contributions from a number of greater or lesser celebrities in the boardgame world. They also have some good contests. Lately they have been replaying some of their older episodes in between their fortnightly new material.
5. This Week in Tech. The one word that I would use to describe this cast is slick. Professionally produced TWiT is like a PC magazine built for radio. The content tends to be lighter as Leo Laporte and guests discuss the week’s technology news.
6. Joyce Meyer Radio Podcast. One of the two Christian podcasts on my list the Joyce Meyer Radio Podcast serializes messages from prominent Christian speaker Joyce Meyer. Produced every weekday you get to hear sections of messages that Joyce preaches at various conferences and gatherings around the world as well as a few interviews. The content is really good but I find the advertising intrusive so I generally skip it. I find that if I skip the first 30 seconds of each podcast and then skip to the end when Joyce stops speaking I get the best results.
7. Geeks and God. These guys talk on some serious technical topics aimed at helping churches and ministries with technology. The content, however, is relevant to a wider audience. Their series on Drupal was fantastic. Currently on a long break I am looking forward to when these guys return.
8. Garrets Games and Geekiness. Hosted by Doug Garrett and his wife Shelley this boardgame podcast covers games that Doug has played in various locations as well as a number of really good roundtable discussions and interviews. I like the conversational style of this cast and Doug certainly manages to get some interesting guests.
9. On Board Games. A relatively new boardgame podcast hosted by Scott Nicholson (of Boardgames With Scott fame), Donald Dennis and Eric Dewey. The podcast uses a segment based format with one segment devoted to a boardgaming topic of interest referencing various gamers and then a number of game reviews. The game reviews use a “stop light” system (red, yellow, green) which I find really useful.
10. Have Games Will Travel. A long running boardgame and role playing game podcast hosted by Paul Tevis. Paul covers some interesting topics and ventures into the role playing game world in a way that is most entertaining and informative. Paul uses his experiences in improv theatre to relate to being a GM of a role playing game and manages to discuss some really interesting psychology around social contracts in gaming as a result.

I don’t agree with the whole article but Steve Pavlina has it completely right when he says:

Overcoming Jealousy

In my opinion jealousy is a side-effect of a mindset that’s rooted in scarcity. Jealousy is the emotion resulting from the notion that another person’s success or happiness somehow diminishes your own. If you look at the world from the lens of abundance instead of scarcity, it’s very difficult to become jealous.

If we look at the fact that God provides everything we need out of his abundance then we have no need to be jealous, God has more than enough to go around and have an abundance in reserve.

On the second session on the Thursday of the Influencers Conference Joyce Meyer continued her series on the things that she has found most influential in her life and preached 2 half messages: one on excellence and one on confessing God’s word out loud.

The excellence talk was great. She talked about the difference between doing things excellently and wasteful extravagance, an important distinction. She talked about how God is excellent and how we need to go the extra mile in everything we do because our excellence is the way that God trains us in everyday life. She talked about those moments when we are alone and nobody will see what we do as being the moments of intimacy with God that will define our relationship where we can reveal our character by doing things excellently. Joyce also talked about mediocrity being a result of the fall because our flesh is lazy and how our excellence in everything we do acts as a sermon to those around us.

As usual with Joyce Meyer there were lots of entertaining stories including one about 2 women strangers taking their shopping trolleys back to the collection point in a supermarket car park when one woman looks at the other and just says “Joyce Meyer?” and the other one sighs and nods “Yep”. Good story.

The second half message was on the power of speaking God’s word out loud. The idea was that speaking God’s word is the only offensive weapon we have in the armour of God and that by speaking it out loud we speak into our situation in a powerful way.

This was a good session with a lot to think and pray about.

For me this session was more about the annointing and the ministry to people than the content necessarily. I know others got much more out of it than me as is often the case with preaching. I was certainly blessed by the sense of the presence of God in the meeting.

Pastor Jane preached on the 5 things that can happen to make us lose God. She preached with great compassion and emotion throughout, especially when talking about how Mary’s grief at the tomb on the morning of the resurrection blinded her to the fact that Jesus stood before her until she was able to turn from her grief and realize what had happened. The 5 things that can cause us to lose God were:

1. Distraction:Getting too busy to listen to God and follow Him
2. Disobedience:Deliberately walking away from God
3. Despair:Letting grief so overwhelm us that we can’t see what God is doing
4. Discouragement:Letting discouragement cause us to go back to where we were when God called us, always a disaster
5. Disappointment:When we let disappointment cause us to seek comfort in the things of the world rather than in God

Following up on the awesome session earlier in the day on seeking God’s face Joyce Meyer preached another amazing message on walking in love to those around us. She shared how this was the second most influential thing that she had learnt (the previous session being about the first) These are a few of the main points:

• Love is a decision and we need to decide to put on love as our “spiritual clothing” every day. She gave practical suggestions on how to do this like watching over the fist thoughts we have when we wake up. Love isn’t something we need to be led to do, we should be able to love people as a matter of course throughout our day. Joyce uses the principle of being loving to people unless God leads her not to but also acknowledges that she can’t do everything that people want her to do so she needs to focus on God’s calling. Love is more about the attitude with which we prioritize.
• Spiritual gifts with no fruit can be more harmful than good see the example of Jesus cursing the fig tree. As Christians we need to display more than just leaves.
• Big point:You cannot be both happy and selfish

Great session.

[Listening to: Two Tribes - Frankie Goes To Hollywood - Now: 1984 (3:55)]

Wow! Pastor Sunday was good but Joyce Meyer just lifted the roof for me. I look down my notes and just about every point is a memorable quote that I could chew on for hours. Easily the best session of the conference so far for me. Joyce was sharing on the 4 things (or 5 things, see my later post) that have most influenced her in her life and this was about seeking God’s face and not just seeking His blessing. I’m going to just transcribe a few of my notes:

• Faith is to get us through something, not just get us out of something
• Faith is keeping your commitment and remaining stable when going through something
• God establishes relationship with us by doing things for us but there then comes a point when there has to be a change, a transition
• God wants us to go beyond asking for what we want and ask him what He wants and what we can do for Him
• God wants to change us until none of the things of life can move us any more
• When God speaks to you He gives you the faith to believe what other people can’t see
• Conferences are just a bunch of principles until God starts dealing with you and building it into your life
• Life is about the journey so we might as well enjoy the trip
• God is always moving us along
• If we just feed on what God is doing for us we will be unsatisfied, like eating only junk food, we need to feast on the presence of God Himself
• What we should be desiring is God and not the things He has called us to do
• God did not call us to be busy, He called us to be fruitful
• Paul prayed for joy in the midst of his and others’ circumstances, not for deliverance
• One of the first signs of pride is missing our appointments with God
• Talking all the time about our busy schedule is a sign of pride in all of the things that we are doing
• God himself is our answer, not the things that He can do for us
• Are we going to serve God for who he is or what He can do for us?
• Give God time and you will be as close to God as you want to be
• If we succeed at something it is because we think it is important enough to spend time on
• Work your schedule around God and not God around your schedule

And that’s just the highlights without all the funny stories and examples (and the actions, voices and faces). If you can get a hold of an audio recording or DVD of this it would be well worthwhile.

Awesome session! Pastor Sunday’s preaching appeals to me. He is both strategic and theological as well as being funny and unconventional. He was preaching on PS 110:1-2, remarking on the fact that Jesus is seated and the instrument of God’s dominion is the local church (=Zion).

The meeting started with pastor Sunday prophetically praying for various people in the meeting for various sicknesses, asking them to lay hands on themselves. He then did something I haven’t seen him do before by asking specifically for people who needed prayer for deliverance from drug addiction to come to the front so he could pray for them. Usually he prays from the front for people where they are seated. 2 people came forward for prayer, very brave on their part in a gathering of mostly committed Christians. I knew one of them and talking to them afterwards God is doing some amazing stuff in their life.

Pastor Sunday then preached an amazing message on the local church as God’s instrument of power by drawing biblical parallels with the concept of Mount Zion. As mountains are elevated places, meant to be seen so is the church meant to be seen by the world as the place where God lives. If our perception as Christians is that it is simply a meeting place then our perception limits what God can do through the church, his chosen instrument. The church is God’s total answer for the world, we just need to realize that.

Pastor Sunday then went on to point out from 1 Tim 3:15 about how the church is there to establish God’s truth in our society and our nation. He pointed out how society wants the church to be silent and non-controversial but how the church, as God’s answer to society, should be leading in every aspect of societal life. Preachers, he said, should be heroes in our society and not just in their own pulpit.

Amazing session, I’m going to have to watch the DVD a few times.

I have to say at the outset that I found the opening night of Influencers solid and good rather than outstanding or life changing. SW managed to save a few of us some of the best seats in the place which was outstanding. We did a bit of celebrity spotting as the front row found their seats. The light show was outstanding, there were even more lights than on Sunday and the tech team did a fabulous job selecting colors and patterns. The bass in the auditorium also deserves special mention, all the kick drums had a satisfying thump with some really goos compressors hard at work to enhance the experience. I think they installed some extra subwoofers. The worship was good with a big choir setting atmosphere. It was the launch of the church’s latest album so the praise and worship was longer than usual with some old church favorites and also some newer songs done just for the album.

When Joyce got up to speak she stated at the outset that she was recovering from a cold and I think we could see her summoning up the energy to get into the groove. She definitely got better as the message went on. Also the sound wasn’t the best, there were a lot of feedback issues so that didn’t help.

Joyce Meyer stated at the outset that she had 4 messages on the things that had most influenced her in her life and she opened up talking about how God taught her to be who she was rather than copying other people. Also that we have a responsibility as leaders to allow other people to be who they are rather than making them be just like us. It was a liberating message, liberating from all the expectations that we put on ourselves from us and others to do things a certain way or to be like others. It was a message similar to one that T.D. Jakes had preached at the 1st Influencers conference 2 years ago. To people who weren’t familiar with the idea I think it would have had a lot more impact.

I don’t know whether it was my perceptions or the overall night itself that made it good rather than great but I know that others had different perceptions and that all in all God was definitely glorified.