An Audio Witness

Attention Pastors, Evangelists, and Teachers of the Word!

Start being an audio witness of what God has engraved within your heart! It's easy, and It doesn't take much time to establish.

On average, I typically spend 1/2 an hour a day/6 days a week establishing my daily audio witness called "The Preacher's Push." This name was birthed in my mind and heart during evangelism. However, it's influence never came into full swing until this past year.

The reason I am posting this blog is to simply show others (who have inquired) how I do what I do that they may establish a similar setup to "exhort one another daily" from the Word of God!

First, PRODUCING - there are 3 different setups I have used in the past to establish an audio witness. Knowing that there are plenty of other excellent options for your consideration, I'll spend my time here with what I do know. (The following are just examples of this preacher experimenting with technology to find a simple way to make God's Word more accessible via audio witnesses.)

• I have used audacity for my audio recordings along with a sound system microphone input. (I don't recommend this anymore due to an ease of access problem for the common person with the desire to be an audio witness.) It worked for me previously because I was an assistant pastor of a church, and lived right next door to the church.
• I have also used a $70 handheld recorder from Walmart...It worked great during pulpit fill recordings and while traveling in evangelism, but, for the cause we are talking about, it wasn't as easy to use due to getting into additional sound quality and importing and exporting files situations/issues, but it certainly can be done, and was done.
• Currently, upon upgrading to mac products (and never regretting this move [I did try the pc thing the other day again, but still, no comparison for what I do]), I have found one program to be very easy, and at the same time very beneficial - Garageband. When I open up Garageband I plug my M-Audio Producer USB into the usb port in my mac of choice and away I go with my next audio witness. I then export to the desired format, and wa-la...an audio witness tool ready for publishing to whatever/wherever I desire.

If you ever want to get into some more advanced personal digital recordings you can check out some of the digital software options Guitar Center has for your computer. Though kind of spendy, these options take all of the guessing and experimenting out of the equation. (I may seriously consider this in the future, but for now I hold to the philosophy - "If it ain't broke-don't fix it!"

And, Second, PUBLISHING - there are 3 avenues by which I have published produced audio witnesses:

• Publish it to a podcast account of your choice. Typically, you'll have to pay monthly/yearly depending on how much storage space your audio witness needs.
• Publish the audio file directly to an app or website. We have not been publishing the Preacher's Pushes directly to our website because we have a church app via thechurchapp.org. This avenue has become the avenue of choice for publishing our audio witnesses across technology. (More expensive [in a way] than the podcast option.)
• The FREE way. Make your mp3 audio file a web link so you can post the link to Twitter, FaceBook, and Email, Website, etc. The easiest way with which I am experienced is by utilizing Drop Box - a cloud based way to share your info. If you have a drop box account you simply drag your mp3 file into the "Public" folder in your Drop Box. When the file has finished loading you highlight that specific file go up to the bar above and click on the drop down window with a picture of a box. When it drops down look for "copy public link." When you click on "copy public link" the file automatically copies to your clip board the web link associated with your specific mp3 file. You DO NOT want to simply copy the file by right clicking on the desired file. Your file will not perform the way you desire it to. From this point, you should be able to paste your link anywhere that accepts such links. Once again, this is a free way to publish yourself, but you'll only be able to publish as many audio witnesses as you have available space in your drop box folder. (I export my final product mp3s at 64kbps, joint stereo-this leaves me with 7.4MB each 15 minute push.) Any questions about this please contact me.

Hope this helps for those interested. This is my first "go" at a "how to as I do" blog, and once again...I know there are many ways to accomplish what we are talking about doing, but I am simply answering the question I have received on numerous occasions, "How do you do your Preacher's Pushes?" Maybe by answering this question for a few many will catch the spirit of audio producing a Gospel witness.

How's your "tech-reach?" (outreach via technology)

Blessed Beyond Measure,
Pastor Justyn Smith