This document discusses religious podcasting and how it relates to traditional religious gatherings. It identifies two types of religious podcasts: broadcasts of sermons from churches and individual podcasts by bloggers. These podcasts seek to create a space for religious discussion outside traditional church culture by being irreverent, secular, and questioning. They borrow styles from radio, emphasizing storytelling and incorporating popular culture references. Initially, podcast audiences were imagined but formats focused on storytelling and found rhythms through negotiation between listeners as passive audiences and active users.

1. Godcasting:in between religious audiences and podcasting communities Paul Emerson Teusner RMIT University

2. Research question Protestant tradition sees the sermon as “the gathering around the Word” So what does podcasting do the nature of “gathering” and how does that shape the “word” (or text)? Paul Emerson Teusner 2

3. Religious podcasting Competes with radio segments, technology and sport as most numerous genre Two types: Internet broadcasting of sermons and other audio presentations by churches Individual podcasters(often associated with ablog) Paul Emerson Teusner 3

4. Podcasts The Father Bob Show Stupid Church People Wired Jesus Podcast Bored-Again Christian Outchurched wtfwjd Paul Emerson Teusner 4

5. Responses to... Mega-church model of contemporary Evangelical Protestantism (as seen in mass media) Preaching and worship as performance Distance of the clergy from the people Passive audiences Popular piety Paul Emerson Teusner 5

6. Seek to... Create a space for religious talk that is “out of church culture” Irreverent Secular Questioning Paul Emerson Teusner 6

7. Text Borrows text style from radio Emphasis on story-telling Sound-bytes from popular TV, radio and film Paul Emerson Teusner 7

8. Examples “Where Christian music gets saved” “I don’t like your God; your God scares me” “And now, from America, the land of TV preachers and magic Bibles...” Paul Emerson Teusner 8

9. Interviews Audiences at first were imagined, desire to put something in the podcast ether Found rhythm to each different podcast Focussed on story-telling Paul Emerson Teusner 9

10. A web 2.0 sensitivity to Christianity Process of negotiation between listener as audience and listener as user Desire for closeness rather than expanse Process of negotiation between “disembedded”-ness of the audience and contextualisation of themessage Paul Emerson Teusner 10