The Diocese of Lincoln is leading the way in reaching young people and the community as a whole, by bringing the values of Christianity right to their iPod! This month, we find out a little more about how the newest media trend of Podcasting is helping the county’s three bishops to reach a wider and wider audience…

By its own admission the Church of England has to work extremely hard to retain the interest of its younger audience and to keep in touch with its congregations. Whilst a handful of parishes produces newsletters or the odd website, ably assisted by the proliferation of PCs in the home, and whilst the Diocese of Lincoln has an excellent publication in the form of its bi-monthly in-house publication CrossLincs, the church hasn’t really used technology to its fullest to keep in touch with its congregations… but that’s all about to change, and the Diocese of Lincoln is leading the way.

Communications Director for the diocese Will Harrison kickstarted the Diocese’s communication revolution with a trip to a conference for Diocesan communications officers on the use of emerging technology to communicate with members of the church. The conference discussed  technologies such as the internet, blogging and podcasting, but it was the latter which really caught Will’s attention.

Podcasting is the newest trend in broadcasting and is really taking off, allowing anybody with a home computer to produce their own audio or video clips and distribute them onto the internet free of charge, but more importantly, each Podcast is automatically transmitted to subscribers’ computers, again free of charge, and automatically transferred to their portable music players, meaning that the church can make regular broadcasts in the knowledge that subscribers are automatically kept up to date with the Diocese’s activities and opinions using a medium which appeals in particular to the younger generation.

It’s a clever system, extremely economical and, as Will demonstrated during our visit, it’s remarkably simple.

“It’s a great way for senior staff in the Diocese to keep in touch, it’s more personal and it’s better that people can hear voices and see faces rather than just reading text.” Says Rt Revd Dr Tim Ellis, Bishop of Grantham.

To offer some idea of how popular podcasts are becoming, the Guardian newspaper’s podcasts are downloaded by over a million