Podcasting

The Working Motherhood Podcast #266

March 2, 2015 by Amy Leave a Comment

In the midst of launching my new podcast Feathers, I came in contact with Dr. Portia Jackson who hosts the Working Motherhood podcast. This podcast is a daily (!) podcast about working moms. I’m so excited to share an episode we recorded together about my journey as a working mother.

In this episode, we chat about adoption, going back to work after maternity leave, people pleasing and letting go of mommy guilt.

You can listen on iTunes or Stitcher or hop over and listen directly on WorkingMotherhood.com.

If you’re here from WorkingMotherhood.com, I’d also love to connect with you on our Facebook page.

Feathers: Coming March 10th!

February 24, 2015 by Amy 2 Comments

Guys. Let me tell you what is happening with this podcast. As it turns out, I L.O.V.E. podcasting. Like, I wish I had an interview every single day with someone.

God has totally shown up (surprise!) and given me words to say and given the guests words to say and so far it’s been nothing but a blast to talk to these ladies.

I was trying to compare it with writing to someone and said I felt like writing can be a very draining exercise. I love it, but you have to be filled up to be poured out into the words. With podcasting, it’s been so life-giving. Of course, the main focus is the guest’s story so I mostly get to sit back and listen to just how awesome our God is. I get to chat with some amazing friends and I leave feeling so lifted up (maybe like soaring on wings?). Who knew??

Now, it hasn’t come without its frustration. And surprisingly, all of it has been on the technical side. My recording software failed ONCE AGAIN and a second interview was lost. There might have been tears after that one. No worries, though, I have switched software and hope that I fixed that issue. There’s lots of technical and logistical issues to work through and I just really wasn’t expecting the amount of behind the scenes work as this requires.

Isn’t that funny? The thing I thought was going to be hard is downright fun and yet the part I thought would be a breeze is driving me crazy!

I was listening to another podcast about podcasting (follow that?) and they made such a good point. Every single thing about this podcast can be changed after it launches. I don’t have to wait until it’s perfect (which of course I’ve been doing). If you end up hating the intro, I can change it. If you end up hating the format, I can change it. If the artwork doesn’t make sense anymore, I can change it. I can change anything at any time I want. And for some reason, that gave me the freedom to let these things go.

All that to say, I’ve decided to lock down a release date. Whatever I have, even if it’s not perfect is going out the door on MARCH 10th.

On that date, you’ll be able to listen right here on the site or it should be available on iTunes, if not shortly after.

Two weeks. You’re going to hear some awesome stories of women who love the Lord and have trusted Him with so many parts of their lives. Our God is so faithful and I just know you are going to be so encouraged.

Two weeks. TWO WEEKS!

Feathers, Fear, IF:Gathering and Where I’ve Been

February 16, 2015 by Amy 1 Comment

Well, hello there, friends. Begging grace for announcing I’m moving forward with a podcast and then falling off the face of the blogosphere. If you missed me, you might have guessed that I’ve been busy plugging away at the podcast and if so, you’d be a little right.

But I have a confession to make.

After I posted the last post with the name, artwork and intro, I became paralyzed with fear. In fact, I think the Lord prompted me to write about it then just so I couldn’t back out since I told you about it. I became overwhelmed with doubt and questions. Who was going to listen anyway? Who would sign up to do it? Lord, you do know I’m terrible at conversation, right? Why me, Lord, I’m very sure you have the wrong person! I even doubted the original call. The Serpent’s words from the garden echoed in my mind, “Did God really say….” In fact, I told several people that had I not announced it, I would have talked myself right out of it.

I spent the week after my last post in St. Louis, Missouri on a business trip. I had had lots of thoughts of being able to work on the podcast in the evenings at the hotel after work before all this fear hit me. While I was there, I couldn’t even open my laptop to work on it. I needed to get my schedule in order and send some emails out at the very least, but I just couldn’t. And worse, I felt like God kept me from writing too. It was like everything was suspended so we could see whether I was going to be obedient or not.

That Thursday after I got back, I sat in tears in front of our small group and asked for prayer. It felt so silly to be so emotional and fearful of a podcast, but I was. I was so scared.

Isn’t it like God that he would test me with a call to be obedient in faith in the midst of creating a podcast about faith? I was truly having to live out what I was going to preach one more time. God had asked me to do something that seemed scary and I was going to have to decide one more time if I trusted Him or not.

Then IF:Gathering happened that weekend. And man, God was all over me the whole weekend about that podcast–and not in a condemning, pushy way. The whole weekend was centered around faith and each speaker preached a section about Joshua leading the Israelites into the Promised Land. I felt like He lifted that Spirit of Fear and I was so encouraged to take my next steps of faith. And what I realized is even though I really am not qualified and there are many more people that could do a better job, God is calling me. And even though the questions were still there, my job is to offer what little bit of faith I have and it’s enough. I don’t have to have perfect faith that lacks any doubt to be obedient.

I left the weekend so emboldened to move forward. That Sunday I did all the work I had planned while I had been out of town and within a few days had several interviews scheduled.

Then, of course, the first interview the next Tuesday flopped. The sound was off and the software failed to record my guest’s audio. I felt a little like I had lost a battle in the war. I walked away so disheartened. And yet. I still felt so much peace about it and ready to move forward.

I’ve since had two more interviews and guys, I’m beginning to see the true power of these stories. I really thought the faith stories were going to be about people with great faith and how to follow in their footsteps, but truly what they are about is a great God who is faithful and is able to direct our next steps. He is so trustworthy and cares about us so much. Our vision and thoughts are so different than His. Great faith comes from knowing Him more, not understanding the circumstance more. The more we understand His character, the more we can say yes to His calling. And the more we hear these stories, the more we will understand His character.

And so, I’m so excited to see where this goes. And yes, I will probably return to my closet-recording-studio to interview and edit away for another few weeks. I’m really hoping to launch in the first week or so of March.

Here are some things you can pray about in the meantime:

Pray this verse with me: God has not given me a Spirit of fear, but of love, power and a sound mind. 1 Timothy 1:7
Pray that I search out the right people to interview
Pray that the right people will answer the call
Pray that our conversations are God-honoring and rightly give Him the glory for what He’s done
Pray that the technical tasks and logistics of launching this will be completed

Thanks so much, friends.

The Podcast: The Name, Art and Intro

January 27, 2015 by Amy 10 Comments

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.

FeathersiTunes2-500

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!

A Podcast Provision Story

January 14, 2015 by Amy 4 Comments

I don’t know about you, but January isn’t the most, er, lucrative month of the year for our family. The downward spiral starts somewhere in the summer with vacations and back to school, takes a dive during our fall birthday season and crashes during the holidays. We brace for bonus and tax season in the spring to save us. Sound a little familiar to anyone?

Yeah, so having a massive car repair bill and then wanting to start a podcast the first two weeks of January isn’t what we would call ideal.

Did you know there are podcasting setups with mics, mixers and such that are thousands of dollars? The top of the line microphone costs $330 alone. Training videos and communities are another couple grand. And that’s nothing to say of editing software, media hosting plans, or graphic design. It all sounds so simple in your head, doesn’t it? Push record, talk, and voila! Podcast!

You can get by, though, with a simple setup at first. I told Scott on Monday I just needed $100 to start.

Well, wouldn’t you know by the next day at noon he was handing me a check from some side work he had done. And guess how much the check was? You guessed it. Exactly $100.

He said, “Here, go buy your mic.”

God is so good isn’t He? I know He’s directed me to this podcast–about faith, no less–and already I see Him at work to provide. Yeah, the provision looks a lot like hard work, but the opportunity presented itself and we were able to take it.

What do you need to believe God for today?

I still need a name for this podcast! I have a long list of ideas, but nothing feels just right yet. I’m going to be married to this name and tag line for, well, life really. Will you pray with me that God shows me just what it would be?

A Verse for the Year and The Birth of a Podcast

January 12, 2015 by Amy 8 Comments

If you would allow, I have a ~~bit~~ lot of meandering to do in my post today. It’s a lot of pieces tied together telling the story of my verse for the year and more about ,wait for it–my new podcast!

A Verse for the Year

At the end of last year, I started thinking about the new year, what my goals should look like, what direction I should take with the blog or what my one word should be. A few things came out of that. I shared one of those which is my one word for the year: focus. Ever since then, I have seen how important this word is. I am so easily distracted with things to do and thought trains I shouldn’t be on. Many times already, I’ve simply had to tell myself “FOCUS!”

At the first of the year, I also saw how the MOB Society had decided to choose a verse for the year instead of a single word. I really liked that idea, although I’d already picked my word. I tucked that away to see if I needed to do that also. Then, one of my friends on Facebook linked over to Sarah Bessey where she had also picked a word (two, in her case) for the year, but also the Lord led her to a verse. And so, I felt like I should follow suit. I began to look up verses with the word focus in them, but did you know there is not a single verse in the entire Bible with the word focus in it? How could that be? Where was my verse?

But, I really felt like there was a verse out there for me and I wracked my brain for a verse that might come to mind and the Christian-ese phrase, “focus on Jesus” came to mind. Google then led me to Hebrews 12 where it says, “fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” Oh yes, this is exactly what I felt led to in my one word post. I need to focus, or fix my eyes, on Jesus and where he might lead for the year.

Let me push the pause button here because I need to introduce another thread here.

A podcast? Are you sure?

Back at the end of the year another word began to drill a hole in my head and that was podcast. Like, all the time: podcast, podcast, podcast. I found this to be strange because I’ve never had plans to birth a podcast out of this blog. Also, the only experience I have with a podcast is when I co-hosted a fan podcast for Friday Night Lights several years ago (Oh yes, I did interview Tami Taylor, which rocked my socks). But, I mean, certainly God wasn’t leading me towards that, was he?

In addition, I’ve concentrated on writing here, not speaking. Speaking was the furthest thing from my mind. Did you know I used to hide behind my mom’s leg so I wouldn’t have to talk to people? Even the other day, I had to work up the courage to call a doctor to make an appointment. It’s ridiculous how I hate calling for appointments, specially after going through a case with the clinical negligence lawyers because of a situation that happened in the past. I have no idea why. I mean, in general I love talking to people and I love people, but I don’t know, there’s some anxiety there about doing it publicly. So, podcast, Lord? Really?

If you’ve been around the past few months, you know this speaking thing isn’t entirely new, though. I really felt the Lord leading me to speak and teach about Eagle Feathers back in the fall. I ended up doing a little video series on those.

So, podcast. It kept coming up, but I had no idea what to do with that. Should it just be me talking? Perhaps me and Scott? Me and my friends? My family? What would we talk about? How often would it be? I had all the questions.

I emailed a few of my people to see their initial thoughts, and as supportive as they were of whatever I decided, none of them really had any solid direction to provide for me.

And then one day, I was sitting journaling at my dining room table and I looked out the window and saw several birds out my window. It was very strange as birds had been pretty scarce in our backyard recently. But there were 2 or 3 of them, just hanging out near the window. And of course, I thought about our feather story. And sitting there, I really felt like the Lord dropped into my mind what the podcast should be about.

The podcast would be a place for people to share their own feather stories. Not where God had shown up in feathers or butterflies or what not, but the stories where God had directed them to do something that maybe didn’t make sense at the time or from the world’s point of view was a little crazy, and yet by faith, they followed through and later saw the wisdom of his commands. So, maybe you had to move your family or quit a lucrative job or start a ministry or simply reach out and talk to someone but you weren’t sure why at first. It’s the stories of God speaking and his people having just enough faith to believe Him and obey.

So, I began recording my feather story one day on the audio app on my cell phone to explore what the podcast might look like and I said, “the Bible tells of our great cloud of witnesses” and the podcast would be the place for people to share their own stories.

A Great Cloud of Witnesses

Now, let me push play again and go back to where I’m sitting there reading Hebrews 12. I backed up a sentence from “fixing our eyes on Jesus” and it’s the part that says “let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.” And like, woah. If you know my history, that verse is like a neon sign to me. My eBook written about my emotional affair is named “Entangled,” named from this verse. Looking at these verses, it feels so much the story that God is writing in my life. The last decade has been so much of throwing off everything that hinders and since last year, I’ve felt that shift to focus and run.

And then, if that weren’t enough, I backed up just one more phrase in Hebrews 12 and it says, “Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses.” I was stunned. It was the exact phrase I had used about the podcast. And more than that, right in Hebrews, perhaps in reverse order was what I felt God had done and was doing in my life. Throwing off the sin that entangled, focusing on Jesus and then thrust behind the podcast. All of it neatly tied together.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

I backed up to Hebrews 11 where it shares many of the stories from those great cloud of witnesses–how Abraham left his home to a place he didn’t know and how the people passed through the Red Sea and how the people marched around Jericho and how Rahab welcomed the spies. All those times God told his people to do something crazy and the people had the faith to obey him.

They are the feather stories of the past and the podcast would be a modern-day Hebrews 11 where people could share their stories of the present.

So no one is building an ark or marching around Jericho but God IS moving. I want to give people an outlet to give Him that glory to say God is able and faithful and if we just believe and act in faith, we will see Him move.

Jennie, Joshua and some feather earrings

So, after I ran into this verse, I was pretty convinced this is the direction to go in.

And then, THEN! Jennie Allen from IF:Gathering announced the new set of Scriptures that IF:Equip is going to study in preparation for the upcoming IF:Gathering and guess what it’s all about? Joshua. They’re focusing on faith and belief in God. They share how Joshua was one of only 2 that really believed God to lead the Israelites into the promised land and how he took over leading the Israelites and then led them to march around Jericho. Jennie says, “We are excited to begin wrestling through unbelief and will fight for a deeper faith in God.” And yes, this is exactly what I feel like God is wanting to do through this podcast.

Clearly, God is moving through his people right now and begging them just to believe he can do great things. We need these modern-day stories as encouragement. We need to build our own cloud of witnesses.

And if that weren’t enough, just guess what Jennie is wearing in her video? Huge feather earrings. I have to laugh just a little because isn’t that so much like God? Jennie ~~probably~~ has no clue about our feather story or how God has been moving me towards the podcast and honestly, I hadn’t really been paying attention to what the IF:Gathering topic would be about this year even though I’m helping to plan our local gathering. It was just like one of those God winks through a feather to say, Yeah, you’re on the right path.

And so, all of that to say, I’ve got my set of verses this year and a podcast is being birthed (seriously, it’s still just an idea. I haven’t done a thing!). I’m so excited to talk to people and see how God has moved in their lives. I’m so excited at the thought of people’s faith being encouraged and for folks to really step out in faith in whatever God has prepared for them. I believe He really, really wants to do great things through his people.

So who’s with me? What should we name the podcast (Feather Faith, Feather Stories, etc)? Who knows someone who really needs to share their story?