Christmas Stories for Candlelight Communion Services

I have written and illustrated three Christmas stories that are perfect for Pastors, Ministers, Teachers, or Administrators who need a multimedia Christmas story to tell for a class, service, ceremony, gathering or assembly. I wrote them for use during my church’s annual candlelight and communion service.

These stories are available for $20-25 each. You’ll receive a zip file containing a PDF of the story text, a PowerPoint presentation containing all of the illustrations, and individual jpg image files of each slide (in case you don’t do PowerPoint).

The Very Last Room

What would you do if your family had taken the very last room in Bethlehem… just before Mary & Joseph arrived? This story follows a young boy and his family on their way to Bethlehem to be taxed. They end up taking the very last room available in the city forcing Mary and Joseph to take the stable out back. You’ll love how this story comes together and the strong evangelistic message it shares. The story is fully illustrated and stylized to fit the time period, but with a modern twist.

Purchase The Very Last Room on my Etsy page.

The Birthday Story

“The Birthday Story” is the Nativity Christmas Story as told by Mary to her young son, Jesus. Based on Luke 2:19 (“But Mary treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart”) The story comes from the perspective of Mary recalling the events that led to her son Jesus’ birth day.

The audience thinks they’re hearing a modern day story… until various details reveal that this is a retelling of the Nativity from a different perspective. Children and adults will enjoy hearing about the trials of making a journey to Bethlehem on a donkey with a child on the way… and the hope a mother has for her son, the Messiah. Helps all ages remember that Jesus’ birth was real… and so is our reason for celebrating Jesus, not only on Christmas, but every day of the year.

Purchase The Birthday Story on my Etsy page.

 

The Christmas Repair Service

A magical Christian Christmas parable that will help children with selfishness, anger, obedience and the reason we celebrate Christ’s birth in the first place. Told with a bit of magic and a lot of fun. Every child will go away realizing that our beliefs should affect our actions… and that we need Christ to change our hearts because we can’t fix ourselves. 

Purchase The Christmas Repair Service on my Etsy page.

Thoughts On Podcast Structure: Part 2 – Segments

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Read Thoughts On Podcast Structure: Part 1

Every podcast is divided into segments. Even the hip shows that don’t do intros and just dive into the interview, dialog or conversation have them even if it’s just one or two. A lot of new podcasters fight segmenting their show. They are concerned that it will stifle their creativity or limit the scope of their potential topics. In the same way blinders limit a horses’ vision to help him focus on the road ahead, segments help you to instantly know what content you need created each week as determined by your topic. Continue reading

Considering A Sermon Podcast

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I used to be a pastor. I still am, technically… I’m just not working as a pastor right now. I was a pastor to children and though there are things about ministry I don’t miss, there is quite a bit that I do. You want a list? I’ll give you a list.

Things I miss:

  • Using all of my gifts and talents at one time for one purpose.
  • Serving God through full-time ministry.
  • Having a purpose.
  • Connecting with kids… especially the misfits and troublemakers.
  • Teaching people from the Bible.

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How To Find Your Worldwide iTunes Podcast Reviews For Free

Did you know that when you check your reviews in iTunes that you probably aren’t seeing all of your reviews? That is because iTunes has an individual store for 120 different countries. Your show is listed in every version (as far as I know) and each has the possibility of some additional reviews from foreign listeners! There are services that would love to charge you a lot of cash for every podcast you own every single month… but with a little elbow grease you can check these reviews yourself… or even set up a feed to have new reviews delivered to you automatically. All for free. Continue reading

Enhance Podcast Subscription Options on Your Site

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While there is no “best” way to get people to subscribe to your podcast from your website there are things you can do to make the option to do so more obvious.

Here are the things I’ve done to help site visitors to subscribe to my podcast, offering subscription options, not pop-ups and other guerrilla tactics.

I don’t know where I heard this, but someone at Amazon once said something to the effect of, “They should be able to buy something on every page.” It doesn’t matter if it’s real or not… it’s good advice. I apply it to my site by saying, “They should be able to subscribe to my podcast from every page.” Here are some places I put subscribe options:

Subscription Options on the Main Page Header and Sidebar

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I added a tab above the navigation but below the header. It puts a call to action right at the top of the main page (only). You’ll also notice a line of subscription icons along the top of the sidebar. The key icons are iTunes, RSS and Email. The Email links to a MailChimp subscription form.

Subscription Options on My Subscribe Page

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I have a Subscribe link in my main navigation bar. This is what it links to. I added a brief description of what subscribing is, then a text version of the sidebar icons. Here I also directed folks to the option of listening on the website by directing them to the podcast archives.

I added links to the various podcast listening apps that I have available as well.

Lastly I list out three alternative feeds. My main feed only holds the last 100 episodes. So we have a feed for episodes 1-100, 101-200, and 201-300 (that gets a new addition each week).

Subscription Options under Episode Posts

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Using a great plug-in called Shortcode Exec PHP I can add a short bit of code and have all of the text shown above automatically added. This is great because if this information ever changes, I edit it one time, in the settings of the plugin, and every page using the short code is updated.

You’ll see that I have repeated much of the content on the Subscribe page… but tightened it up for space reasons.

Just One Thing…

Between the main page header, sidebar, the subscribe page and the text added under every episode post I feel like I’ve got everything covered. You can literally subscribe to Nobody’s Listening from any page on the site.

I tend to obsess about my website… but from what I have gathered in 7 years of podcasting most of my subscriptions come directly from iTunes (to the tune of 98%) and most of my audience have experienced the show without ever coming to the website. So any stress you might feel about not having your website setup to attract new subscribers… get your house in order… but don’t lose any sleep over it.

Video: Automate Id3 Tag Editing With Mp3Tag Actions


This is a video tutorial that explains how you can fill in the static (unchanging) fields of your podcast episode id3 tags automatically using Mp3Tag Actions.

If you have several podcasts or even one regular show typing in the ARTIST, ALBUM, YEAR and other static content can be redundant and if you’re me, outright annoying. Thankfully Mp3Tag (a free download) allows you to set up Actions to automate this process.

The video above shows how to use the TITLE field and a series of format actions to fill in every id3 tag field, including the importation of your podcast cover art. After you’ve set up your first set of actions, creating one per podcast is a snap.

If you have any tips about Mp3Tag or id3 tags in general, please leave them in the comments. Thanks!

Download Mp3Tag (PC Only)

What Is Your Motivation For Podcasting?

A question was recently posed by Chris Cowan on The Hobby Podcaster Facebook group. He asked where the line was between podcasting as a hobby and being considered a professional. If you make money on your hobby podcast does that move you into the professional category? The conversation quickly shifted to the question of motivation… why and how we do what we do in the practice of podcasting. This is an important subject for me and what began as a short reply quickly became an entire post; the one you’re now reading. You may not agree with my particular slant on the topic—and if you don’t I would love to hear from you—but I think most of us would agree that our culture generally values Image over Integrity. This article is a critique of that distorted value, its influence on podcasting and our motivations in general.

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