As many of you may be aware, The Parousia Network has been involved in radio, most of it focusing on house church, for some 5 years now. We have produced weekly programs and daily programs and am painfully aware of some of the challenges involved. Not the smallest challenge is the challenge of NOT boring people to death with warmed over or second rate material. We actually cancelled a daily program a couple of years ago because I was beginning to bore myself, and suddenly realized that I was probably on the verge of boring my listeners (although input from listeners continued to be positive and favorable). I am in the process of writing a book on the Kingdom of God, and one of my introductory observations is, "We have reduced the Kingdom of God to a trinket for sale, and in the process we have bored our Post Modern culture with the greatest story ever told. And that should be (if it isn’t already) an unforgivable sin."

 

This is all background to say that I have been working and talking behind the scenes with house church people over the past couple of months about establishing a consistent and on-going platform for telling the story of "simple church" and making it as widely available as possible in a format that is simple and easy (and free) to access by anyone, anywhere. The vehicle I am going to use is the "podcast". Done properly a Podcast is a radio program which produced and then posted as an MP3 audio file on the internet and registered with aggregators and syndicators such as "iTunes," Podcast Alley, Podcast Planet, Podcast.net and others. Individuals can access these either by free subscription (so they are delivered automatically to your computer when posted) or by logging onto one of the syndication sites and simply clicking and listening.

 

The goal of these podcasts will be to produce weekly programs which feature the best of what simple church and house church have to offer: interviews with house church leaders & practitioners who have a story to tell about what God is doing RIGHT NOW in their house church. We'll do individual interviews, conference call group interviews and more. The programs will be oriented toward the practical as opposed to the theoretical; how to answer questions, how to handle money & giving, how to lead neighborhood or community outreaches that are creative and effective, what new resources are coming available & more. In short, we need an up-to-date method of communicating with one another about what God is doing TODAY in simple church, sharing ideas, solving problems and placing the "best material" we have to offer out where anyone and everyone can access it and benefit by it. In addition, if you and your house church would like to begin your own podcast about what God is doing in your midst, we want to be able to help you produce it and publish it (yep, you read that right).

 

Here's Where We Are!

 

When I first began pursuing this project I genuinely didn't know who (if anyone) would respond. Jim Rutz is not only a house church pioneer, but a friend of our ministry. When I presented this concept to Jim he caught the vision and made a generous gift of seed money to help get it off the ground. That enabled us to upgrade our computer & digital editing capability and helped us with some essential basics. Then, Jim from Texas sent us a wonderful e-mail about how the Lord has led him to support the growth of house churches and that he wanted to give toward this project. Jim's generous gift enabled us to complete the next phase of our plan and purchase the basic equipment to create a modest but professional production studio which can produce and deliver quality podcast programs!

 

Item & Explanation	Brand	Picture	Price
Here's what it looks like right now! Welcome to our "studio in progress." The laptop is for digital editing and website management. The studio mic is a Behringer B-1. The mixer is a Behringer XYNYX 1622. The top rack is the Tascam CD-A700 CD/Cassette player/recorder. The next is the Telos One phone hybrid, followed by the  audio compressor/gate. The space at the bottom of the equipment rack is for the addition of new equipment including a headphone mixer and a mini-disc recorder/player.
Telephone Interface - this is a unit that cleans up an ordinary phone line and turns it into broadcast quality. There are analog and digital models, and several good brands (Telos, Symetrix, JK Audio)	Telos One		BOUGHT!
Audio Compressor - this unit takes the signal from the Telephone Interface and equalizes & stabilizes volume variations to create a better balanced signal before it goes to the mixer board.	DBX 266XL		BOUGHT!
Digital Mixer Board - This is a digital 16-input mixer board with a USB/Audio interface. (That's fancy talk for a mixer board that will feed out into a USB port which connects directly to a computer so you can record digitally and directly onto software).	Behringer XENYX 1222FX		BOUGHT!
Cassette Tape/CD Combo - This is a studio quality Cassette tape and CD combo unit for playing recorded material into a mixer board. Trust me, you need one for post-production work.	A Tascam CD-A700		BOUGHT! (We actually got the next model up for only $50 more!)
Mini Disk Recorder/Player - This is a studio quality Mini Disk recorder or player, an industry standard for hard back-ups & playbacks. Yep, you really need one in post-production work.	A Tascam MD-350		Still Need $470.00
Studio Microphones - I want to have 5 of these available in order to do "roundtables" at conferences and other meetings. This is a great package with mic, case, wind screen and shock mount!	Behringer B-1		Still Need $99 each (we need 5)
Microphone Stands - Yep, you need one of these for each microphone. So we need five (5).	Atlas Sound DS7E (Black)		Still Need $20 each ($100 for 5)
Guest Headphones - These are for our roundtable guests so they can hear themselves during an interview. We can buy these in a package of 5	Sennheiser HD202PKG		Still Need $89.00 for the package of 5
Headphone Amplifier - In order for all 5 interviewees to hear themselves you need to amplify the signal. That's what this unit does.	Fostex PH-50		Still Need $209.00
Carpeted Mobile Rack Case - This carpeted pro rack case from Gemini is a great solution for transporting our equipment to conferences and more.	Gemini MRC6		Still Need $99.95

 

 

O.K., When I began this project I knew it would eventually cost us around $6,000. And we are right on track! Thus far we have purchased nearly $4,000 in equipment and are "closing in" on the rest. The remaining $2,000 (that we still need to raise) will go toward remaining equipment, studio microphones (I want 5 so we can do "roundtable" discussions at conferences and other gatherings). Also, I am negotiating with a Christian satellite radio network about re-starting a half-hour weekend radio program on house church, and I want to pay the first couple of months in advance (neighborhood $500). I want to encourage you to participate in this. I am sending this out to my small portion of the House Church community because I would like to see the "free range chickens" in our movement come together and be involved in a project that has the potential to bless and benefit the House Church/Simple Church community at large. Remember, "Many hands make for light work."