The Power of Podcast

For the 3rd time in the last 6 months we have had someone become part of our church family largely because of our podcast. In one case a lady that Leigh Ann and I knew through preschool had over time found out that i was a pastor and goggled my name. Which led to the blog and then to the church website, then to the sermons online. Before they ever came to the church she had listened to several of my sermons through the podcast.
In another instance a couple that had recently moved to the area was driving around and found our church. We have our website address on the church sign.

From the website they found the sermons and before they came to worship they had heard a few of my sermons and had even attended a Tuesday night small group.
The most recent case a man saw another one of our church signs (this was a directional sign that says the church is down the road) googled the church name, found the website and listened to the podcast before coming. This man decided to join our church family largly through the information he got through our website and podcast.

We get about 40 downloads a week (and yes most are my mom). We are a small church, about 220 a week in worship, and the podcasts have been an effective way of letting people know about our church as well allowing people to stay connected when they miss a Sunday. I bought 2 things to get our podcast ministry started, a digital recorder and Podcasting for Dummies which i give to one of our youth who is a tech guru, (you rock Austin) and he did the rest. The last 2 weeks we have put together a short video kind of as a sermon tease, Austin has also put this online as a podcast.