As I wrote in my profile, "I'm a stay-at-home mom who is never home (I'm usually in my car). " I have to drive everywhere, I drive my daughters to school, I have to drive back from taking them to school, I have to drive to pick them up and I have to drive from NJ to PA to go to seminary. I drive a lot and one thing I can tell you is morning radio in NJ and PA stinks (thank you, Howard Stern, every show has a giggly woman and a guy telling off-color jokes). So, I'm always on the lookout for something interesting to listen to while I drive and recently I found something completely different. It is the Fick and Oz show.
This is a very funny show that is: "A provocative talk show that looks honestly at the church, culture and Christ. A good mix of humor and profundity." Well, I think this blog, Life Under the Sun and eventually Reformed Weltanschauung Blogging are about Christ and culture, so you can see why I would be interested.
I came across their site completely by accident one morning. I was checking my stats and I noticed that I got a hit from a comment section of a blog that I had never visited before and being the curious person that I am (read nosey), I went and checked it out. It turns out that someone had linked to the comment section of my blog. So while there, I noticed that it was a website for a podcast and being the daring woman that I am (read bored with morning radio), I downloaded the first podcast to see if it would be worth listening to and recommending to my loyal readers (all three or four of you).
I listened to the podcast the next day in the car and I was laughing so much that I'm sure it was quite dangerous. One of the things they did was read from this article on Pensacola Christian College. It was so funny, this college is the worst! They are much, much more stricter than Bob Jones University. (Can you believe that there is a college on the right of Bob Jones University?) Their student behavior code is something out of the medieval period. But the shocking thing was that the college is being funded--get ready for this homeschoolers -- by Abeka Book!! Your money is funding this college which isn't even accredited.
Even though the show was long and poorly edited, I could see it had great potential so I downloaded the rest of the podcats and listened all week while I drove to school. Show 2 almost made me stop listening; I was kind of bored with it. I listened to it again today on the way home to see if I felt differently, and it was better than I remembered but there were some places that didn't hold my attention and I dozed off at one point (it's a good thing they have rumble strips on the PA Turnpike). But they redeemed themselves in Show 3, it was great and the rest of the shows after that were really good as well.
They do regular bits such as "getting into the word" and a "freak of the week" that are usually pretty good. They look at famous Christians throughout church history who have given their all for Christ. They've done Jim Eliot, C. S. Lewis and then a combination of John Newton, William Wilberforce, and David Livingstone and it was pretty well done (though they did promise to go back and do each individually but they haven't yet). My favorite bit is Fick's predictions (and no I'm not going to say any more about it, go listen for yourself).
After I listened to the podcasts, I decided I was going to recommend them to you, my loyal readers. So, I decided to contact them and get their take on what the heck they were thinking when they decided to start podcasting:
Who is your target audience and what do you hope to accomplish with your podcasts? (Entertainment, spiritual growth, outreach?) I plan to mention you on my blog and would like to include that type of information.Evidently they weren't thinking too much because this is the response I got:
Target audience – anyone who’ll listen – I think you’re luck number 7. Seriously – I would say any one who doesn’t mind us poking fun at them. We are bound to hit on something that pertains to you. We aren’t quite the SNL of the church but if SNL says nothing is off limits – then I would agree that is true of us as it pertains to the church.When you listen to the show, you can tell they've got some kind of an idea where they want to go with it and that they're not just two youth pastors sitting around swapping stories and calling it a podcast. It does have the feel of an actual broadcast (one that's definitely in it's infancy).
What we hope to accomplish – I’d say all of those that you suggested are nice objectives. Just trying to get people to relax in the church and hopefully those outside the church might find something compelling to join with us.
One thing that I need to warn you about is that this show is PG-13. I know that sounds weird, especially since they are youth pastors (or maybe because of it) but on a couple of the podcasts, especially Show 5, they get into a panty discussion and the show deteriorates after that. Now, don't run off and listen to Show 5 until you listen to all the previous podcasts because each show builds on the previous shows and you won't get the references if you haven't been listening to them all.
Finally, yes, in Show 6, I am the Michele they are referring to. This is the email I sent them when I requested information about their show:
BTW, it would be helpful (and easy to do) if you could link to some of the sites that you reference on your podcast. Since I'm usually driving in my car when I'm listening to you, it is really dangerous for me to write down the site (especially since I am usually being tailgated by semi-trucks and those guys would probably run me off the road if I slowed down to write).So, while I'm driving this morning, I was listening to their podcast on my mp3 player (not an ipod, a cheaper one but it does have over 1 GB storage) and they were talking about me listening in my car and laughing so hard I might get into an accident and when Oz says, "Michele, look out for that car" a car stops in front of me and I hit the brake and I avoided an accident. These men are prophets :-). You really should listen to them! You can click on their icon in my sidebar bling section or on the icon to this post.
Updated to add: You may be interested in my response to the podcast.
Tags: Podcast, blogs4God, Christianity, Bible Study, Spirituality
