Podcasts are, I think a wonderful thing. I am planning some content on the how’s and why’s of listening to them but for today’s short, I wanted to just list my top five and give a short promo for each and explain how they resonate with and impact me.
The Your Time, Your Way Podcast – Carl Pullein
This used to be called The Working with podcast and personally that name was less problematic for me. But the podcast is gold.
Carl give productivity wisdom and guidance for real people. So much of the stuff out there feels to me like it was written by solopreneurs for solopreneurs. It ignores the realities of life ofr people who actually have jobs and do not work for themselves. It ignore the realities of family life, of different stages and seasons. And as such, the value is hampered.
Carl instead gears more towards the realities of life for everyday people and as such I find his stuff much more helpful.
Each week, he picks and issue or a question raised by a listener and addresses it simply. He doesn’t waffle for hours or record a conversation that goes round the houses. The episodes are generally 12-15 minutes long and they are gold for tips and wisdom.
Five Minutes in Church History – Stephen J. Nichols
Church history is an essential topic of study for all Christians. This is my conviction. For most of us though, the prospect of actually studying Church History is a big turn off. Huge tomes to read, written in language we barely recognise talking about people we have never heard of. The task is too big. So we don’t bother.
And we are poorer for it.
Enter this podcast. Each episode is 5 minutes long. Each episdode looks at a person, a place or an event from church history and gives either a brief overvue or a brief, but in-depth deeper dive into something very specific and detailed. Over time, this podcast gives a really helpful framework for getting our heads around church history.
The Knowing Faith Podcast – Kyle Worley, Jen Wilkin and JT English
Another corker here. This is 3 people who love Jesus talking about theology for about 35 minutes each episode. I recommend this for 3 reasons:
- A deeper knowledge of God and theology is critical for believers in any day and age and ours is no exception. This podcast will be a sizeable step for you on that journey.
- So often, we are put off pursuimng point 1 because we just think it is beyond us. This podcast shows us that even those we consider to be ‘the wise and the learned’ are actually real people. We get to listen in as they figure things out work things through together. It is valuable, not just for the output we receive, but also for being able to witness the process as it unfolds. See how these guys think and work things through.
- These 3 obviously know each other very well and the banter can be hilarious at times.
The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill – Christianity Today
This is not an ongoing podcast but was a stand alone series. It deals with some heavy stuff so comes with a health warning.
Ultimately it deals with the story of how Mars Hill church, under Mark Driscoll’s leadership, grew to be a multi-site mega-church of over 15,000 people and then collapsed. It showcases the danger of toxic, narcissitic leadership that is allowed to run unchecked where all accountability or restraint is shut down.
This can be a hard listen at times, especially if you have your own experience of any kind of unhealthy leadership patterns. As you hear people be interviewed about their experiences, the fallout in their lives and the total lack of recognition of anything being wrong from those responsible…..it hits hard.
It’s a necessary podcast that is helpful to listen to, but it does come with a health warning.
Redeeming Productivity – Reagan Rose
I love what Reagen is trying to do. He wants to help Christian people be more productive but to do so via methods and for reasons which honour God. As such, he often presents his advice and wisdom in a way that unpicks some of the really unhealthy and selfish ideas that there can be in productivity content. He is also pretty good as speaking against making our ‘productivity’ into any kind of idol.
These are longer episodes than Carl (maybe 30-45 minutes) and Carl’s advice is more directly helpful for every day life. Reagan is perhaps a bit more big picture concepts, whereas Carl is more 9am Monday morning how do I do what I need to.
But, if you follow any kind of productivity advice as a Christian, Reagan’s material is essential to guard against being taken down unhelpful roads.
I did think about linking to these to be helpful, but since we all use different podcast apps, there seemed little point – just search for the title.
