Sarah Lumbard introduction at e-Formation 2013

So I’ve spent much of the first year of my new job helping plan e-Formation 2013, a conference on faith formation for a connected digital world. Yesterday, I had the distinct pleasure of introducing our keynote speaker, Sarah Lumbard, vice president of content strategy and operations at NPR (she was really great, by the way, but that’s not what this post is about). Suffice it to say, I am a big fan of NPR, and of certain brands in particular.

I’ll admit it, I geeked out a little. Rather than give you a bunch of self-conscious narrative, let me just set it up with some tweets and then tell you what I said.

Like many Episcopalians, I am a serious fan of public radio. But my relationship with NPR changed recently. I’d listened for years to a couple of their podcasts, but only to catch up with the on-air shows I care about. Then about six months ago, my friend Randall Curtis told me about an NPR show called Pop Culture Happy Hour. PCHH isn’t a radio show; it’s a standalone podcast, featuring four otherwise “off-air” NPR contributors.

These friends get together each week and talk about the stuff they love: movies, TV shows, music, books, comics … you name it. They are smart, they are funny, and they end each episode with a segment about what’s making them happy this week. I fell instantly in love and proceeded to devour more than a hundred back episodes. I’ve since gotten hooked on a number of other podcasts, many of which I found out about from PCHH panelist Glen Weldon.

Let me share two quick reflections on this experience that are relevant to our task today.

First: Imagine if the hundreds of hours I spent listening to podcasts this spring had included even a small percentage of time listening to religious programming–not Pat Robertson stuff but thoughtful, culturally engaged, theologically sophisticated content. That could be a couple dozen hours, about the same amount of time that a fairly serious parishioner might have spent in church during those same months. As it turns out, I do listen to a small percentage of religious podcasting, and a lot of it is really good. I have an increasingly difficult time imagining what my faith life would be like without podcasts, and that’s just one of the media available to us for touching people’s lives “between Sundays.”

Second: This experience has reassured me of the power of new media to create genuine connection and remarkable loyalty, both key to any process of discipleship. I rush home on the afternoons that new episodes of PCHH get released, and not just because that happens on Fridays. And when I tweet the gang a question or comment after listening, I know there’s a pretty good chance they’ll respond. Am I “friends” with any of them in the way we’ve historically understood that word? Of course not. But they bring a lot of joy and fun into my life, and they regularly share a bit of theirs with me and thousands of like-minded listeners. That’s something I’m very grateful for, and I bet I’m not the only person in this room who can say the same sort of thing about a faith leader they’ve connected with through similar means: sermon podcasts, YouTube videos, blog posts, Facebook updates, etc.

I think we’re just beginning to understand how the new media ecology creates opportunities for the church to reach out and touch the people we serve, and the people we hope to serve. With that, it’s my privilege to introduce someone who can teach us a thing or two about this water we’re dipping our toes into.

“As Vice President of Content Strategy and Operations, [NPR’s] Sarah Lumbard helps coordinate strategy across the News, Programming and Digital divisions.” Previously, “she served as Senior Director of Product Strategy and Development, and led and managed all of the NPR digital initiatives on existing and emerging platforms to ensure that the public can find and enjoy NPR and station content wherever they choose … Under her leadership, NPR has achieved triple-digit growth across all mobile platforms.” Please join me in welcoming Sarah Lumbard.

It was a great day. Thanks Sarah, Linda, and all you supportive conference-goers who were willing to indulge me. I hope my thoughts were pedagogically valuable in context besides being “all fan girl,” as someone said to me afterward.

I love my job.