Miscellaneous Archive
Encouraging Email Posted on June 18, 2008
I received this email from a re/CALL listener in Indonesia:
Hi Jason, I am *************** from Indonesia (South East Asia). I am 19 years old and a new convert to Orthodox Church. I am very glad and rejoice in my faith! I also am really helped by the re/CALL website and its postcasts... It strengthens my faith and understanding about our faith, orthodoxy. Thank you!!
Please remember that your support of re/CALL (through both Ancient Faith Radio and the Antiochian Department of Youth Ministry) makes this sort of outreach possible.
CSS Flavor Posted on May 31, 2008
The re/CALL website is currently featured on CSS Flavor, a collection of the best CSS design websites.
Article About Creating Podcasts Posted on April 15, 2008
On the blog for my Get Wisdom podcast, I've uploaded a brief article - also linking to a short series I wrote a few months ago - about creating podcasts. You might find this helpful if you're thinking about creating an Orthodox podcast.
Hear Yourself on re/CALL Posted on April 07, 2008
I would like to add two new features to the re/CALL podcast.
First, I'd like to give teens the opportunity to be heard in the intro to the program. Thus, where you currently hear me say "re/CALL is a production of the Department of Youth Ministry and Ancient Faith Radio," you could hear something like, "I'm Jason Barker from Denison, Texas, and this is re/CALL" (I'd like to include parish names, but the limited time in the intro bumper music probably makes that impossible).
If you would like to hear yourself on re/CALL, send me an audio file of yourself saying, "I'm [name] from [city and state], and this is re/CALL." I actually don't mind if there's background noise, like sounds from a school or city street; that would add authenticity to the intro. The important thing is that your voice be clearly heard; if your voice is drowned out by the noise around you, then you'll need to find somewhere more quiet in order to make a clear recording. What I do need is a file - preferably WAV or AIFF, but MP3 would also do - that has a bitrate of at least 128 kbps (for example, songs you purchase from iTunes are usually 128k). This will enable me to compress your recording into the 64 kbps MP3s that I create for the podcast, but would also sound adequate in the 320 kbps version that plays on Ancient Faith Talk.
The other feature I would like to add is a "What's Happening Now" segment near the end of the program, where I give news of events in parishes across North America (and even around the world). I'm not looking for things like upcoming Church school lessons, nor am I looking for things like announcements for a pizza party. However, if your parish youth group is doing something like volunteering at a nursing home, or helping out with Habitat for Humanity, or hosting an outreach event at your parish, I think that other youth groups would be excited to hear about it; it may inspire them to do something similar in their parish. If you'd like your youth group event to be featured on re/CALL, you can email me info by clicking the "Send Jason Email" button in the menu in the left sidebar of this page.
Collect Orthodox Quotes Posted on March 24, 2008
I've written a post for the Orthodox Christian Bible Studies blog about my system for collecting and organizing Orthodox quotes. I've found this to be a reasonably successful way of overcoming my tendency against keeping track of my notes when writing, and it's allowing me to slowly but surely build up a small library of easy-to-access quotes from ancient and modern Orthodox teachers on a variety of subjects.
Chat Feature Added Posted on March 14, 2008
I've added to this site (it was already available on my Orthodox Christian Bible Studies and Get Wisdom blogs) a link enabling visitors to chat with me using AOL Instant Messenger (AIM). You will find the link in the menu in the left sidebar (inside the "screen" of the MP3 player).
