Leadership Journal

How many people last month visited National Community Church?

12,771.

I couldn't see them. I didn't shake any of their hands. Truth be told, they didn't really visit us. National Community Church visited them.

They didn't physically attend one of our weekend services. Many of them aren't ready to walk into a church yet. Others live halfway around the globe. But all of them invited NCC into their iPods. They gave us a fraction of their storage space. In a sense, they invited me to go jogging with them; commute to work with them; hang out with them.

How? These 12,771 people clicked into our www.theaterchurch.com podcast.

About a year ago I started experimenting with spiritual disciplines.

I regularly work out at a gym on Capitol Hill, and I found some of the music offensive. Instead of allowing myself to be a captive audience to whatever station the gym tuned into, I got proactive. I purchased an iPod and started downloading music and messages. I started feeding my spirit while I exercised my body. I redeemed the time with a little spiritual multitasking.

That personal experiment was the genesis of our theaterchurch.com podcast. I wanted to make our weekend messages available to anyone who wanted to use their workout or commute as devotional time. I also wanted to reach out to people who might be willing to check out NCC via a podcast.

We were already recording every message on CD. We simply started uploading them to MP3 format so that people could download them to their iPod. We only had a few takers when we launched the podcast in July 2005. Then the New York Times did an article on religion and podcasting that featured National Community Church. The headline called it "TiVo for Your Soul." That was followed with primetime stories by both CBS and FOX news in our local market.

Now, months later, we're impacting more people via our podcast than we are with our weekend services. And it's redefining the way I think about evangelism and discipleship. Podcasting 101 wasn't offered when I was in seminary. Neither was Blogging 101. But the digital revolution has presented us an unprecedented opportunity.

I have a growing conviction that the Church should be in the business of redeeming technology to serve God's purposes.

Like Johann Gutenberg did when he used his new printing press to get more Bibles into more hands. Why not redeem the iPod into a tool for evangelism or discipleship?

The message is sacred; the medium isn't. We need to use the resources we've been given to share the gospel with as many people as possible. It's a stewardship issue. We're far too analogical in our approach to ministry. Carpe digital!

Who said preachers have to preach from behind a pulpit and parishioners have to listen while seated on wooden pews?

When John Wesley was ordained into the Anglican priesthood in 1728, it was assumed that preaching would take place behind a pulpit inside the four walls of a church sanctuary. Preaching outdoors was considered ...