Audio interview with Andrew Root, author of “Relationships Unfiltered”

Relationships Unfiltered: Help for Youth Workers, Volunteers, and Parents on Creating Authentic Relationships

Last Friday I had the privilege of spending some time with Andrew Root (@RootAndrew on Twitter) on the campus of Luther Seminary in Minneapolis, where he serves as Assistant Professor of Youth and Family Ministry.

In addition to hanging out and attending one his classes, I was able to interview him about his newest book, Relationships Unfiltered. Relationships Unfiltered is sort of like a condensed, more practical, and less scholarly version of his first book, Revisiting Relational Youth Ministry, which I have called the “absolute best youth ministry book out there right now”. Although less heady than Revisiting Relational Youth Ministry, Relationships Unfiltered definitely doesn’t disappoint.

Anyway, you can listen to the interview below and/or download it for listening on portable devices. Enjoy.

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Click here to download the interview in mp3 format [39 minutes | 17.1mb]

Click here to download the enhanced interview in m4a format [39 minutes | 34.5mb]

The Jake & Tom Podcast returns

After a very long hiatus, the Jake & Tom Podcast is back in full glory.

Click here to download the brand-spankin’-new Jake & Tom Podcast.

Also, I’ll be out of town until late Sunday night touring with my choir, so until then, there probably won’t be a whole lot of updating going on.

Podcasts

No, this post is not an announcment of a new Jake & Tom Podcast. No, we haven’t quit doing them. Yes, we’re still friends. No, I don’t know when the next podcast will be.

For the past week, I have been searching for and compiling a select list of podcast subscriptions. Listening to and subscribing to podcasts is convenient because I can listen to them while sitting at my computer or on the go (via iPod), and I don’t have to be looking at anything as with television. They are several criteria a podcast must meet in order to be deemed worthy of a subscription by myself:

1. Good sound quality. Sounds obvious, but after listening to a Des Moines news podcast, I decided not to subscribe because the sound quality was so poor.

2. Quality over quantity. My 7am NPR news summary is 5 minutes long and is more valuable to me than an hour-long Democracy Now! podcast. I can listen to the former while I am getting dressed in the morning… the latter just takes up too much time.

3. Personalized. I’d rather listen to a Cubs podcast than a podcast about all of Major League Baseball, you dig?

With those criteria in mind, here are my current podcast subscriptions (links take you to iTunes Music Store):

Is anyone listening to an awesome podcast I might not know about? If so, please let me know. I’d love to find a couple of really awesome Christian ones but haven’t yet.

The Jake & Tom Podcast: Week 3

After a short hiatus, the podcast is back. You might even say “by popular demand.”

Click here to download the latest installment of the Jake & Tom Podcast.

How Fitting…

Check it out: The editors of the New Oxford American Dictionary have selected the word “podcast” as the Word of the Year for 2005 (full story). It’s a good thing Tom and I jumped on the bandwagon early. If we’d started podcasting after this momentous occasion, we would look like followers – certainly not pioneers. Two thousand[1] listeners can’t be wrong.

And you thought I made it up…

[1] Give or take 1,975[2].
[2] Okay, just take. Maybe someday.

The Jake & Tom Podcast: Week 3

We’re sorry to announce that there won’t be a podcast this week. As we approach the end of the semester and finals week, both Tom and I are overwhelmed with school work.

There will be a podcast released before we leave for break on December 15.

The Jake & Tom Podcast: Week 2

Click here to download the latest installment of the Jake & Tom Podcast.

Leave a comment and let us know what you think. We’re not doing this for ourselves. Well, not just for ourselves.

Podcast FAQ

The Jake & Tom Podcast is a hit. Feedburner tells me that there are 16 subscriptions already. The last two days have both been record setting in terms of visitors to this website (over 200 unique visitors). People have been asking me lots of questions about the podcast, so I’d like to take some time to answer them below.

Q: When is the next one?
A: Our goal is for the podcast to be a weekly production. However, we have already run into our first roadblock: Thanksgiving break. It won’t necessarily be every Saturday per se, but we’re aiming for one a week.

Q: Will they all be the same length?
A: Our aim is for each show to be 10-20 minutes.

Q: Where did you do this?
A: Jake’s dorm room.

Q: Was that really Jake’s mom and brother, and did they know you were calling?
A: Yes and no.

Q: Can I post a link to the podcast on my blog or website?
A: Yes, please do. Look, we even have it copyrighted.

First JakeBouma.com Podcast

Click here to listen to the first ever JakeBouma.com podcast.

“But, what is a ‘podcast’?” you say. It turns out that the Oxford English dictionary has a definition:

podcast
noun; a digital recording of a radio broadcast or similar programme, made available on the Internet for downloading to a personal audio player.

What makes podcasts so popular is that you can subscribe to them and have the daily/weekly/whatever audio file automatically downloaded to your computer as soon as it is published.

Here’s how to subscribe to the Jake & Tom Podcast with the latest version of iTunes. Open the iTunes program. At the top of the window, choose the option that says “Advanced” and in the dropdown menu choose “Subscribe to Podcast”. Copy the following link and paste it into the box that asks for the URL: http://feeds.feedburner.com/jakebouma. If you have done it correctly, the latest podcast should automatically begin downloading, and every future podcast will be downloaded as long as iTunes is open.