I’ve been disappointed by the lack of quality youth ministry podcasts available. Most seem to just push products and services or ramble on and on about unrelated issues, so I thought I’d start one myself. My idea is to release an episode of about 15-20 minutes in length on a weekly basis containing discussions/interviews with teenagers on issues in their culture. The target audience will be parents and other youth workers, so these discussions with teens will pertain mostly to how adults can understand them and best help other students in those areas. Topics that come to mind include depression, MySpace, values, stress, cutting, eating disorders, faith/spirituality, sexuality, divorce, dating, suicide, abuse, etc, etc, etc. Hopefully the podcast will be insightful, give ideas for effective youth ministry, open windows into youth culture and prompt thoughts for youth workers to discuss with their students.

Bill Scott, a friend of mine, life-long radio veteran and president of Zjam Youth Ministries and Teenhopeline.com, is helping with some of the initial production. He also wants to include the podcast on Zjam’s new huge website that will release in about a month. So it looks like the Lord has some plans for this podcast that extend beyond the scope of my blog. I’m excited and looking forward to what He wants to do.

Posted on August 30, 2006