The Podcast: The Name, Art and Intro

Alright, guys. I finally have enough of the bones of this podcast to start sharing. It probably feels like it’s not much, but believe me when I say a lot of work has gone into getting this far.  Today, I want to share the name, the iTunes artwork and the introductory audio clip.

The Name

Let’s start with the name since it came first. I had a very long list of possible podcast names. You guys helped me come up with some. We were batting around ideas around feathers, a cloud of witnesses, and faith. I think I had a list of about 20.

And at this point I was just begging God for a name. I was like, God, if you want me to do this, you’re going to have to give me a name for it! And, of course, He did.

One day I was scrolling through Twitter and saw that Tsh has launched a new eCourse about living more intentionally against mainstream culture and it’s simply called Upstream. I love Tsh and her whole goal in life is to live simply and I realized that’s exactly what we needed to do with this podcast.

The night before, my friend Bette suggested that I record several of them using the different names and see which one fit better.

I pulled out my iPhone’s voice recorder that afternoon and recorded a 12 second snippet introduction (at the end of the post) testing out simply “Feathers.”  And then it was like love at first.  I knew the podcast would simply be called Feathers.

And just to make it a little more clear that we’re not talking about chicken feathers or something, we’ve added the tag line “Faith in Flight”. Maybe it doesn’t totally make sense what the whole thing is about, but if I’m scrolling through iTunes in the Christianity section and see Faith in Flight as a subtitle, I’m going to have a pretty good clue and probably be interested enough to check out the longer description.

So, guys, meet Feathers. I feel like I’ve named a child.

The Artwork

After I had a name and subtitle, I decided to test out a few pieces of artwork for iTunes. I put something together just as a sample for the designer to know what I liked. I used the feathers from the TrueCotton print. The designer and I spent over a week going back and forth and all sorts of really cute ideas, but nothing really clicked.

Every single time, everyone I showed kept going back to the artwork with the watercolor feathers. But then there was the issue of licensing. Arin over at TrueCotton was so gracious and we were able to work something out. I’m ecstatic to be using her feathers.

 

Isn’t it pretty? I really do just love it. I’m pretty sure it breaks all sort of “expert Podcasting” rules about artwork, but it’s meaningful, and pretty and I think will do an excellent job of representing the podcast for us.

The Intro Clip

I’ve also recorded the first intro podcast where I share the initial feathers story.  Frankly, it was awful trying to record that. I share an intro about myself and then share the feather story. Many of you have followed over the last months, but I’d never really told the whole thing from start to finish in person.  I basically had to sum up the entire story in less than 15 minutes! I must have taken 20 different takes trying to get it all right. I now am crystal clear on why I probably shouldn’t do a weekly podcast of just me talking to you.  I was literally banging my head on the microphone at one point asking God to help me say it all right.  He did indeed do that and the first episode is complete.

I thought I’d let you guys get a tiny peek at the intro to the episode:

 

Next Steps

So, now that I have a visual and the introductory episode to hand to some folks explaining it a bit, I feel like I can begin the interview process. The goal is to launch with the intro episode and 2 more interview episodes.  And then there’s all the business of getting hosting and submitting to iTunes and well, I’ll spare you guys the technical details.  In any case, it’s still going to be a few weeks at least. I don’t have a launch date yet.

I’m getting excited (and nervous) as the time goes, though. I keep running into different things just confirming the need to hear these stories.  We truly need to hear how God is active and trustworthy and faithful. There’s so much theology being discussed on the Internet and things we should and shouldn’t believe and I’m just so ready to hear how God has actually decided to work in people’s lives. It’s the irrefutable evidence from a witness that can not be shaken. I ran into these words from Christine Caine and love them so much.

We’re surrounded by such great a cloud of witnesses in heaven. Tag, we’re it. We’ve got the baton of faith right now. But my legacy is not how big a ministry Chris Caine builds or how many people she speaks to, but it’s how effective I am in handing over the baton of faith and making sure I don’t hold onto some things longer than I should—that I don’t drop some things in the middle of the exchange zone.

In Christianity, nobody wins until everybody crosses the line.

We talk so much about personal faith, personal salvation, and all those things are critical, but I think it’s so important that we understand that we’re part of an eternal relay and we’re responsible for handing over the baton of faith to our generation.

I want Feathers to be part of that handing over the baton. I want it to encourage your faith so you can experience God’s faithfulness more and join him where He’s at work.

 

Alright, so, I feel like we’re having a podcast baby and you just got to see the first ultrasound. Er, or something like that!  In any case, you’ll get to meet ‘er in live and in iTunes soon!