I found Travis’ name and looked up his website. Come to find out, while I did not know him personally, it seems that we had a lot of mutual friends in the ministry. I sent him a quick email and he replied positively about doing an interview. When we got on Skype together I asked him what he knew about Missionary Talks. Turns out he had never even heard of Missionary Talks previous to my email. That is not unusual for the missionaries I interview, but the fact that he was gung-ho about doing the interview with me made me think he probably was a listener.

We are in the middle of trying to get ready for our move to Argentina while also being involved in a pastor’s conference this week, traveling to a church in Kentucky this weekend and spending most of next week in a mission’s conference in Tennessee. I am trying to do anything I can to distract me from the fact that I should be packing for a major move in 13 days. So, I spent all morning yesterday recording an interview and editing it. Seemed like the responsible thing to do.

As an added bonus to this episode, if you go to the Missionary Talks fan page on Facebook you can listen to a clip of the interview that did not survive the editing process, but was a very interesting section of our conversation. Don’t forget to become a fan if you go there.

Yes, the above linked Twitter account is the account where I say more mature type things as opposed to my other Twitter account which is the real me.

Through email earlier this week we worked out the details for me to call him and record the interview. We were both very surprised when I went to pick up my son from youth meeting on Wednesday and saw Andy standing at the front of the church. Neither one of us had a clue that the other was in town. We enjoyed catching up and sharing some of our conversation with the listeners.

The next episode I put out I hope will be one of the new Missionary Chats formatted show. I will try to alternate these as much as I can, but there may be more Talks than Chats at times, or vice versa.

There are a few podcasts that I listen to listed there, but there are several other good podcasts that should be there. I should compile a list and contact my podcasting friends to get their shows listed there and help grow the community. The site is fairly new and needs help getting some momentum pushing them the right way.

The reason for doing a video version is that many of our friends are Deaf. This would allow them to get content in their language while still making it accessible for the hearing. Meaning that I would both sign and speak each one of the updates.

I don’t plan on this being a traditional podcast in that I will provide content that the general public might want to consume. Rather it will be simple, short updates about what is going on with us.

What do you think? I know that those who pray for us would like more regular content so that they know how better to pray. Is this the best way to deliver that content? I have intentionally avoided using my prayer letter mailing list as an “update” medium. I would rather those who are more connected with us go to the website and get that additional information. Do you agree?

**What is meant by “podcast”? This is a format for providing content that the “subscriber” can receive automatically via software that grabs the new information when it is available. All the content will be available at the website to view on-line, but by making it a podcast that simply means that the user could go to one piece of software to consume all the content, i.e., iTunes.

The interview with Mark Coleman is an interview with a friend. I have known Mark for several years. I was pleased to spend time with him in his church recently and find out a bit more about how he got involved with Deaf ministry. Mark and I started learning sign language about the same time; 20 years ago. I think you will enjoy hearing him talk about how the Lord led him into working with the Deaf.

Getting interviews has been a bit more difficult than I expected while we have been home. It seems that it is easier to do a phone interview than a face to face one. Until recently, I have not had the ability to do phone interviews because my equipment was not set up in our transitional housing. However, I found a new solution for doing an interview via phone. This should allow me to get more interviews up in the next few weeks as we prepare to move to Argentina. Though the move will complicate any kind of schedule I have for a while.

I have another interview recorded that I am working on editing. Some are easy to edit, and others are not. The one with Mark was easy, and therefore was put up within a few days of recording. The other one I have had for 3 weeks and have worked on it a bit at a time, but I still have several more hours of editing to go on that one.

A new idea has been rolling around in my head for Missionary Talks too. I may change up the format a bit. I will still keep the missionary interviews as they currently are, but may add another type of conversation/interview into the mix that will have me talking regularly with some of the missionaries I have already interviewed once. I will keep you posted on what I decide to do.

While this is not an actual application of GTD to running a church or ministry, it does track heavily with what David Allen teaches.

The thing that I find most difficult to manage in my ministry is “crisis management.” Both Allen and Chappell talk about how that we sometimes get sucked into the trap of managing what is urgent and not what is important. I sometimes allow other peoples’ crisis become my top priority and neglect what I should be doing.

This installment of the Spiritual Leadership Podcast was a practical application of how to define planning based on the roles being played.

Here is my list of excuses:

• I have been traveling and had to dump my recordings to a different computer. That computer got unplugged when we moved (hours before we left on this last trip). I was not able to access my previously recorded interviews.
• Then we were in several great meetings, but none of them were mission conferences. I had no missionaries to interview.
• To make matters worse, I can’t do phone interviews on the road. I don’t carry the equipment I need with me for that.

So there you have it, my list of excuses as to why this has been so long in coming. I will get an interview out soon. We will be traveling again over the next month, but traveling does not keep me from working on interviews. It is the fact that I had none to work on that kept me from getting them up.

In this listener feedback episode I talk about what is going on in my life, what the future holds for Missionary Talks and give a big thank you to the listeners. While one listener stepped forward with a very generous monetary gift, I know that other listeners value the content of Missionary Talks. For that, I say thank you.

At the end of the episode I share some audio from a recent interview. Missionary James Menkhoff shares a story about how God used him to speak a word of encouragment to a pastor who later became a missionary in Africa.

Missionary Talks episode 65 was a conversation I had with Jonathan Reed. Jonathan and his wife are going to a remote area in northern Brazil to work with an indigenous tribe on the Amazon River. They will be leaving in April and are excited about the ministry the Lord has led them into.

Episode 66 is an interview with Bob Ingram who works with soldiers at Ft. Benning, GA. Bob does a great job in describing what he and his wife try to accomplish with these men in the short time they are able to minister to them. He also talks about what we can do to help his ministry or other serviceman’s centers around the country.

I was able to interview both these men at a conference I was at a few weeks ago.

This interview was recorded during a rain storm. Since we were recording in my car, we got quite a bit of noise from the droplets. I was able to keep the rain noise out of the recording for the most part. But when I ran it through Levelator (which I try to avoid when possible) the rain showed up in a bad way. I manually leveled the audio and came out with a pretty good recording. But there was quite a bit of inequity in the volume between us. I think it came out pretty good in the end.

I already have 3 more interviews recorded from a mission conference this last week. I should be able to release them fairly regularly over the next few weeks.

I found this picture at Katie’s blog. Here she is goofing around with Dr. Don Sisk. Dr. Sisk is a man who will go down in the history books as one of those great missionaries of the faith. He was a missionary in Japan for many years. This picture is great in that it shows the old Japanese missionary along with the new.

I have two excuses for not having another Missionary Talks episode out sooner. Neither one of them are really good excuses, but here they are.

I have not had my equipment set up to do phone interviews. Since we have been back in the US this was the first phone interview I have done. I have also not done much recording in my office here at the house. I have quite a bit of echo in this office. I need to do something to cut down the room noise. I was pleased, however, that this interview sounded so good. It was well balanced on the volume between us. I skipped two steps of post production because the sound was so good without them. There was no need to degrade the quality of the recording.

So my first excuse was equipment. I have another phone interview tentatively scheduled for a couple of weeks from now.

My second excuse is that I did an interview in December that I really wanted to have work. It was an interview with a friend of mine in Africa. What he had to say was tremendous. How he said it was an editing nightmare. This was the first interview I have recorded that I did not use. I kept holding on to the hope that I could make it work, but it wouldn’t. I put off any other interviews because of that one.

But, I am now back and on the right track. I have another interview scheduled for tonight (which I will put up next week some time) and I will also be at a missions conference next week. That should yield another couple of interviews. It has not been as easy grabbing interviews at conferences as I had hoped, but I am making it a goal to wrestle at least two missionaries to the ground and make them talk with me.

Enjoy Katie’s interview.

I mainly just talk about some interviews I have planned for Missionary Talks and I talk a bit about running.

There is not much here. It is short. Enjoy.

According to The Public Speaker there are different ways to shake hands based on country and culture. In the US we like a firm handshake that neither crushes the hand nor feels like a limp noodle. There are variations as to how long you should linger holding hands based on many unspoken cues. There is also meaning in the way you hold your hand during the shake. Humorously, I have read that the sandwich, or two-handed handshake should be reserved for politicians and clergy. Maybe that is why I have a tendency to shake with two hands.

When one person turns their hand palm down during the shake that indicates they are the dominant one. They communicate that they are in charge. The one whose’ palm is face up is supposed to be the submissive one. Ideally you would see yourselves as equals and have your palms perpendicular to the floor.

Last week we met a man who shook my wife’s hand first and intentionally turned her hand palm down. He was indicating that he was “at her service.” When he shook my hand he kept our palms as equals.

After doing all this reading, I had a funny thing happen to me. There is a lady at church that I have been wanting to talk with, but did not take the time to call her. I figured I would just see her at church. I was pleased to walk into church 15 minutes early the other day and see her. As I approached her she started walking towards me with her arm outstretched for a handshake. Her palm was down. That meant nothing to me a couple of weeks ago, but this time it did. She was one of my teachers in college. Though I see us as equals, I needed to talk with her about an area of her expertise. That pronounced the fact that she was in charge of the conversation.

This is just something I would have never noticed before.

Show notes:

• Geocaching.com
• Where’s George $1 deposited at the cache
• Geocoin that I wanted to deposit, but did not have with me
• Trackable coin that I found in the cache and will deposit in another

Enjoy!

We recorded this in my hotel room at a meeting we were at together. I had a lot of ambient noise which was a surprise to me. I used the noise reducer in my software to knock it down quite a bit. I also had a lot of mic handling noise. I don’t normally have that problem. I was able to cut most of it out, or lower the levels, but it there is still a little in there. Not enough to take away from the interview though.

Enjoy!

Tonight I uploaded an interview with a missionary to Mexico, Tim Strang. He grew up on the field and has been back there for the last 12 years serving in smaller towns and villages. Many of the missionaries I talk with are in the bigger cities. Some will even make an issue as to why we should do our work in the larger areas. Tim is very much interested in the villages and has a love for where he is serving the Lord.

Enjoy these two episodes of Missionary Talks. I have a couple more interviews already recorded with a couple more scheduled. Looks like things are headed in the right direction for a while.