INDIANA—With more and more people turning to podcasts for their news, Indiana Conference has jumped on the bandwagon and is creating fresh content through a regular series called “Hope for the Heartland.”
Plans for the podcast came about naturally. When WYLJ 107.5 FM, a new 3ABN station in Terre Haute launched two years ago, the Indiana Conference Communications staff began to think of opportunities to record local programming. The first recording was of the Indiana Academy Christmas Concert last December. Then, when Nick Miller, Lake Union director of Public Affairs and Religious Liberty, visited Indianapolis for a forum on the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, he presented a great issue-oriented show.
As we continued doing radio shows talking about disaster response, Timber Ridge Camp and our Encounter Bible curriculum in Adventist schools, we started thinking about internet radio and promoting our shows as podcasts on our Conference, church and school websites using SoundCloud as our host and distributing to Lake Union and Conference Facebook social media channels. We hope we are reaching new audiences that may be interested in who we are and what we do.
If you're not familiar with podcasts, you may be in for a pleasant surprise. Think of them as having all the benefits of the old pre-war radio program format, with the modern advantages of the Internet and computer-based devices. You can listen to them directly from a website, or download them to your phone, iPod, MP3 player or computer, to enjoy later.
Are podcasts for you? Probably. Find out for sure by searching for programs of interest and downloading a few episodes to your computer, phone or tablet. To hear Indiana Conference podcasts, check out www.indysda.org and click on the Media tab. You will see “Hope for the Heartland” podcasts listed. Happy listening!
