In the digital age, media ministry is more crucial than ever. It’s a dynamic way to spread the gospel and connect with audiences on a personal level. As a media professional in this field, I’ve had the privilege to learn from seasoned experts, such as Luke Firrugia from the Aus Table Talk podcast. Drawing from his valuable insights, I’ve distilled three key strategies that can transform your media ministry today.
1. Embrace Imperfection, Strive for Excellence
Don’t let the pursuit of perfection hinder your progress. Luke and his team started their podcast with basic equipment and limited expertise, yet they launched and steadily improved over time. Remember, the most important factor is your message and your passion. Begin with what you have and gradually enhance your production quality as you grow. God will multiply opportunities and give you success over time! Which leads us into the next point – Consistancy and Continuous improvement.
2. Prioritize Consistency and Continuous Improvement
Consistency is key in building a loyal audience. In the podcast, Luke emphasized the transformative power of committing to a regular release schedule. It signals dedication and professionalism to your listeners. Additionally, always strive to improve your content, whether it’s enhancing audio quality, refining your message, or diversifying your formats. Your audio quality can make a big impact! Keep reading to find out why.
3. Invest in Quality Audio
Sound quality can significantly impact the listening experience. While you don’t need the most expensive gear from the outset, prioritize clear and engaging audio. As Luke’s journey demonstrates, even small upgrades can make a substantial difference. Consider investing in quality microphones, audio interfaces, and basic sound treatment to elevate your production value.
Last but not least…
Your media ministry has the potential to reach countless souls and inspire positive change. Embrace the lessons from Luke’s experience: start now, be consistent, and constantly strive for improvement. Remember, it’s not about achieving perfection, but about sharing your unique voice and message with the world.
Ready to expand the reach of your media ministry and connect with a wider audience?
Blue Vineyard Audio specializes in creating high-quality podcasts for Adventist ministries. Let us help you craft engaging audio content that shares your message with clarity and impact. Visit our website at https://bluevineyard.com/audio/ to learn more about our podcast production services and schedule a free consultation.
Podcast Transcript:
Welcome to Adventist Waves. The fact that you are doing it and you are a human means that it’s coming through a lens that nobody else has and so there is always a market, there is always an audience for you because there is no such thing as a person who is exactly like another person because even if you are saying the same thing someone else may be saying it’s unique because you are expressing it through your lived experience and so I think that was a great lesson that God doesn’t need you to be the top 1% in the world in order to use you, he just needs you to be faithful and he’s just sharp consistently. Thanks to some generous fans.
Before we get into that though, I would really like to welcome you to our community, Adventist Waves is a podcast specifically designed to explore the art of sharing the gospel through music and podcasts. We will be exploring the stories of soon-a-day Adventist audio professionals and I want to invite you to be a part of our community. Please explore how you can in the description. Thanks for joining us. Let’s roll.
Aus Table Talk as a podcast Luke started with four of his mates. They have a unique roundtable discussion format and have a lot of fun discussing issues you wish you had in the church. Yeah, well it was actually a very accidental kind of thing because we were sitting around having conversation at Sabbath School, it was a church and at the end of it someone said, I think this is really great, like this is really engaging conversation. We should do this more often and we should record it or something. And so that was kind of where it started and then had a few guys over to my place and we talked about, oh what if we did it? Yeah, that sounds like a good idea. And we just started. We didn’t really have a plan. The only plan that we had at that point was that one of the guys, Ben, he was studying the fundamentals and we were like, okay, well let’s just do an episode to discuss each fundamental and that was just where we started.
At the start we didn’t really even have a name or anything like that. It was just, well let’s just try and see what happens. But actually I should just jump back in there and say it became intentional eventually but that’s not how it started. So it just was something that was working well for us and we were getting a great deal of benefit from and other people seem to be getting benefit too. But eventually we realized what we were doing was we were sort of allowing people to go on that journey of discovery with us and sit at the table as well. The feedback that we kept getting from people was more along the lines of, you know, I feel like I’m there, like I’m sitting around with friends and I’m listening to them interact. It’s not like we are experts in the subject and we are there to school people. It’s more like we’re on a journey and we’re inviting people to come with us.
Luke comes from an interesting background. He grew up in Queensland, Australia. His story begins when… I was born in Sydney. We’re down in, and we moved down, I should say, lived in the Southern Highlands kind of area from when I was like 5 to 15. We lived out in the country a bit and probably the most formative thing I can say about that time is that despite the fact that we lived way out, it was a really great experience because we would in, you know, people would come and visit us a lot. My parents were very hospitable kind of a household. And we used to have… friends would come down and then like once every couple of months they would come back and then they would bring friends with them. And kind of by accident that became like 200 people showing up at our property once every six weeks or so. And we would have worship and we would have dinner together and then everyone are going to go home. And that just taught me to have a real appreciation for holding space with people and having deep conversations and I just always had a liking for that. So that was that season of my life.
And then when I was 15 we moved to Queensland and that was also a very different phase for me because I moved at that time when, you know, friends are important and I was very much, I don’t want to say friendless, but like I felt very alone for a bit of that time there. And that was in hindsight, I think that was really positive because it taught me a lot about my relationship with God. I guess you could say that was when I started to have a more adult sort of a faith. You could say because I had really examined it. I just like, you know, go along with everyone around me because there wasn’t everyone around me at that point. But yeah, I don’t know how much detail you want me to go into, but that was also around the time of my life where like in my late teens where I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do. I always thought that I had wanted to go into business. I always thought that would be in hospitality, owning a cafe or something like that. But I got work in a cafe and I figured out that I hated it. And so for a while there, I was just like, I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m just going to work in retail because I can sell, I can talk.
And so I worked retail for a couple of years while I figured out what I wanted to do. And that was I started a career in doing web design and freelancing, doing that sort of thing when I was like 18. And I was sort of working retail part time. Yeah, that kind of got me into my adult years. I met my wife, Sarah, when I was 22. And we were together for a couple of years. We got married when I was 25. And a couple of years later, we moved to Bundaberg, which is where I live currently. So that was sort of the season of my life that I’m sort of in now. I’ve had kids. I’ve got a seven year old and a four year old and two and a half or just over two years ago. I started this business, which is Blue Vineyard, which is like unifying the two greatest passions of my life outside of my family, which is the working in the digital space and also working with ministry in the church space.
In his early years, he discovered that he had a passion. Yeah, so I was really passionate about I always I always had this desire to create something out of nothing. Like whether it was when I was a kid, you know, starting a club with my friends and, you know, whatever it was, I always wanted to motivate change and get people excited about an idea and rally them behind it. The other thing that sort of stands out to me is that when I first started, I always liked technology, but what really stood out was that I was a part of an online community back when forums were cool. And I know that that’s that’s dating me a little bit there. But back when forums were cool, I was on this forum at which only had a very small number of people on it. It was very, very niche technology forum. And I started making memes for it before memes were really a thing before memes were in like the common language of the day.
I would create these images of funny things that happened or, you know, having a creating a joke about someone that was on there, whatever it was. And I just developed this real enjoyment for creating content in general. Now, this was like, as I said, was before YouTube and TikTok and Instagram were a thing. But yeah, that was sort of where I started flexing those sort of creative muscles, I guess you could say. So you’re passionate about making memes? Yeah, well, like I said, I wouldn’t have called it that of time. But yeah, I really love that. I like to. But I think what you’re passionate about. Yeah, I think what I really liked though is the it wasn’t the meme as much as it was the reaction. I loved creating something that produced an emotion in the people that consumed it. Okay, okay. Makes sense. Because the meme was your vehicle for creating that emotion. Yeah, yeah.
Luke desired to create a space for people. And as he got more involved in the digital scene, this is what led him to start a company specifically for digital creators. In hindsight, as I said to you before, I wanted to work, I thought I wanted a cafe and then found out that I didn’t. But in hindsight, I kind of ended up where I wanted to be. And I think what appealed to me and a cafe really, I don’t think it mattered whether it was a cafe or whether it was a small shop or whatever it was. But what I really wanted was to have the capacity to create a world. You know, like this is a world in which other people can live, operate and thrive. And that was what really appealed to me about owning a cafe for some reason, that I could do that. But I got confused. I thought it was actually the cafe that interested me, not the team aspect of it. And so now I worked as a solo operator for so long and now in the last couple of years building a team. Now I’m like, ah, this is actually what I really wanted right from the very beginning. I just misinterpreted it.
We all have someone who has influenced us and shaped the way we work. And for Luke, his life was changed through the influence of Jonathan Wald. So the biggest influence in that area, I’ll be honest. So I said this out loud, I guess, for the first time only a couple of days ago. But I realized that a couple of years ago, just before we started this business, I had kind of, in a sense, at least professionally, I had kind of settled as in given up. I thought, you know, I had a lot of constraints in my experience. We can talk about that if you like. But with family and that there was a lot of things that I couldn’t do. And I felt like that was something that I, it was a hurdle that I could not get over. And therefore I was just going to do what I’d been doing, which was just freelancing, building websites for small to medium businesses.
And that’s probably what I was going to do, just to put food on the table and a roof over the head of my family. And that was probably all I was ever going to do. I’d sort of settled at that point. And I got a phone call and I just had people, the influencers. The biggest one in my mind is Jonathan Wald. He was a mentor. Like we had, he was a coach of mine in 2012, a business coach. And he was like really, really helpful. Also an Adventist guy and he had been successful in the business space. And he had taught me some things about business development and, you know, business building and pricing and writing proposals and like all this stuff that was super helpful to me really changed the way I viewed business altogether. He said to me, he called me and said, this opportunity has come up. To do this work with the Adventist review also a long story, but for the sake of time, I’ll just say that I accepted that.
But I had to create a team in order to do that. And after that process, I kind of at the start, I saw this as like a one off. Wow, this is a massive project. And then that was that. But he was the one that said, you know, Luke, you are in a unique position here because you know the church so well. You also know the digital space so well. And you’ve got these connections that not a lot of people have. So if you were to create a business that was serving the church space specifically in that digital area, you would be uniquely positioned to do it. And I prayed a lot and that was probably the biggest thing. I’d say like he was the one that pushed me to do that, which I’m still extremely grateful for.
Later, Luke met Shana Duke, their shared vision led to Blue Vineyard where Shana’s strengths perfectly balanced looks. And I should also say that like even it wasn’t even just him, the serendipity of it all, you know, the Shana is my business partner. And I had only just really started talking to her at all. And we were talking about like getting her to work with me in like my freelancing business to do some work together. But like she arrived, so to speak, on the scene of my timeline right at that moment when that opportunity happened. And so it was just like, oh, well now I’ve got someone that can help out in these areas because Shana is very detail orientated. And you know, she will dot the I’s and cross the T’s and make sure stuff happens. And you know, I recognize that that’s not my strong points. I need her around in order for me to be able to perform in those areas. And so yeah, just God had all of these serendipitous or providential things, I should say, all lined up in that very short timeline of my life.
Luke’s experience as a solo entrepreneur was risky. He took a lot of risks, but God works through it. Take more calculated risks would be the first one. And I say that because you kind of have to know your own bias there because I recognize that my bias has always been to be risk averse. And I think that that has not served me well. I have conditioned myself to take more risks in this season of my life. But I think if we were to, if I was to advise people, I think most people are probably more risk averse than they should be. And so I would encourage them to, if there’s something they’re passionate about to try it, because there’s never going to be an easy time.
Like if you wait until it gets easy, then that’s as good as saying it’s never going to happen. So you might as well try. Good quality audio is a must for any podcast. It sets you apart from their mediocre podcasts that are out there in the world today. Luke’s podcast started humbly. The audio gear was just basic. But now they have a quality audio setup in Luke’s home studio. I just want to jump on that. I just want to say when we started the podcast, I really didn’t, I mean, I had run the sound desk at my church and do some of the stuff that a lot of young people do here and there. But I didn’t really have a true deep understanding of audio or anything when we started.
And the very first episode that we did, we had, we borrowed a like a normal like corded XLR, like one of the microphones that they use for song service at church. And we plugged that into a digital interface and we didn’t even have like a way to hold it. We didn’t have a mic stand or anything. So we put it in a vase in the middle of the table and we all kind of just lent really close up to the middle of the table. And that’s how we did the first episode. And if you go and listen to that episode, it sounds horrible. But, you know, like it was like that was that was stage one, you know, then the next time we came together, Nathaniel was, he was living here at the time he was on. And he was the audio guy at church where he we were. And so he looked at that and he’s like, yeah, that’s not going to work. And so the next the next idea we had was most of us had like like USB headsets.
And so we were like, let’s bring the let’s bring out our headsets and we’ll try that. And so we tried that and one of them wasn’t working. And so what we ended up doing was like just putting the headset on the table and so like the microphone was sticking up in front of each of us. And so we tried that. But all the mics were very, very different. And so like some guys sounded really close and scratchy and some sounded like really hollow and far away. And it just again, really bad. Nathaniel went and he spent out of his own out of his own wallet and he bought a couple of Berenger condenser mics and put them and put them in the middle of the table to get all of us and they they worked much better. We sounded so much better. And it was like, oh, wow, this is such a cool improvement.
But as you know, kind of as you would well know, they could, you know, detect flies wings rubbing together at 20 paces. And so, you know, you could hear everything that was going around, you know, in the houses sort of like away from us, you know, like it was a lot of sound pollution, let’s say, in the in the tracks. And we had that for a while and we’re like, yeah, this works. But we would like to get something that was a little more, you know, rejecting of of the extra sounds. So we progressed and we bought five. What are they called? The road smart lab mics, the ones that just plug into a mobile phone. And so we bought that and Nathaniel got some fencing wire and bent headsets out of this fencing wire and mounted the mics on those and then plug them all into a mixer, which was an audio interface.
And that was the system that we used for probably like that. That was kind of where we settled for years. And despite the fact that it was a fairly cheap setup, it sounded all right. Like it kind of worked until we progressed to the studio where we are now. We’re like now we actually have, you know, proper broadcast mics, you know, we’ve got road pro casters and whatever. And it sounds much better than it did ever before. But I think to like the two lessons that I wanted to point out there for anyone who is looking at getting involved in podcasting or whatever. Number one, the content is always what’s going to matter. So how do people feel? What are they? What are they hearing?
But if they can’t hear it clearly, then they’re not going to engage with it. So quality is important. Like it’s a very close second to what you’re talking about. But you don’t have to have it perfect on day one. You don’t have to go expensive on day one. You can grow into those shoes over time. The quality of your podcast production can make a big difference. The podcast market is just diverse as the patterns on your grandma’s quilt. And to stand out, you’ve got to have good sound. Yeah, absolutely. And also it’s something that is, you know, just podcasting in general and audio in general, like universally, it is one of the most intimate mediums because even though like video gets a lot of publicity, audio is something that is a natural secondary activity. You know, you can be listening to music or a podcast while you’re doing other things. And so most people have a lot more space in their life for audio.
And so if you’re using audio, using it in a ministry context or whatever it is that you’re passionate about, you’re speaking into a space that’s less crowded. And if people are, you know, they’ve got their earbuds in there listening to you, that is, that’s a great expression of trust on their behalf. And so, you know, if you can treat their time with respect and produce something that is both thoughtful, but also good quality so that they can enjoy listening to it, you know, you’re going to make an impact. You’re going to make a difference there. Osstable Talk needed better gear, but they weren’t sure how. Then something amazing happened that changed everything.
Where we were recording for the majority of the podcast experience was in my son’s bedroom, like between the change table and the cot sort of thing. And it was like the smallest room carpeted. And, you know, so it was like the most conducive to podcasting in the old place. And we were just renting there so we couldn’t really do much to improve the space. And we moved across town to where we are now. And when we moved in, the new place had a shed at the back. And we bought it. It was our first home. And so I saw that shed and I immediately knew that the podcast needed a home a lot more than my car did. And so I was like, we’re going to turn that into a podcasting space.
But I didn’t have the funds available to do something like that. And so I put it out to our podcast community. And I said, hey, we’ve got a space and we had a lot of people asking us, you know, hey, can you start doing video? We’d love to like see who you guys are. And, you know, like there’s a lot of the nonverbal communication that people wanted to be able to experience. And so I said, look, I know a lot of people have asked if we could do video. We would love to do that. It gives us a lot more range of things we can do. But to do that, we need equipment and we need a studio space. I have a shed and we’re happy to build it. But here is what we need. And so I posted online a Google sheet of all like an itemized list. We need these microphones. We need this mixer. We need this, this, we need this, that we need these seats. We need a table. We need, you know, whatever.
And I put that on there with our banking details and I said, hey, if anyone wants to contribute, you can see exactly what everything costs and feel free to, you know, donate just whatever you can or pray for us to get more, whichever that is, is fine. And in six weeks, we raised over 10 grand and we built the, built the space over the following couple of months. And that has been like a really amazing, it was an amazing like faith move of, you know, when you’re podcasting, you don’t really know who you’re affecting. You don’t, you don’t know it’s, you might hear the occasional response, you know, you get a message from someone and, you know, they say, oh, that made a difference to me. And that’s wonderful. But when you ask, you know, we pour in, we give, give, give, give as much as we can for, you know, six or six years, seven years. And then we make our first ask.
And all of a sudden, you know, we see that there’s a lot of people out there that actually were caring about what we were doing. And so we, we did that. We bought the studio out and it created some problems that we didn’t expect that we were going to have. Like as an example, moving to include video in the production is that like multiplies the work. It doesn’t just incrementally increase the work. It multiplies the work. So we found that to be very challenging. And so we still do release video. Like the ideal was for us to release video for everything that we did, but we just found that it’s not sustainable. We can’t, we literally don’t have enough hours to be able to produce that.
So we still produce video as much as we can, but not of everything. But yeah, we also use the space to, for other, you know, musicians or whatever it’s because it’s been used a few times to record other things because it’s, you know, a reasonably well treated room. And, you know, they come and use the equipment and whatever it’s. So it’s just been a mode of ministry. That’s not just what we’re producing, but also for other things. Now it’s time for our waves to corner break. I should, I don’t know. The audience may be interested if they’re gear heads that, as I mentioned before, we’ve got the road forecast and mics. We’ve got a Beringer X-Air 18. I think it is a mix. It’s got like 18 channels or whatever, which is annoying because there’s four, you know, virtually all podcast mixes all have our all four channel, right?
So like I’m at the, like some of the ones that like every podcast around there uses all four channel maximum. So it was very hard to find one that was had more channels, but was just, you know, didn’t have bells and whistles that we didn’t need. But anyway, that works great for us. Yeah. So that’s kind of the setup that we’re using with, you know, got, of course, some lighting. We’ve got three Sony cameras, Sony A6400s that we use for the camera angles. And yeah, aside from that, we’ve just built on, you know, fiberglass sound panels that we’ve got, what, 10 of those stacked around, around the room, which make a massive difference to how the room sounds. We actually, when we were doing this, like I was, you know, this is full DIY, you know, I was on YouTube looking up, you know, how to, you know, treat a room and, you know, the, these sort of panels were kind of the best bang for buck if you made it yourself.
And so that’s what we did. And we tested it. So the room was fully empty. We stacked all of the panels that we made all just together and put them in one spot in the room. So like they weren’t doing their job, you know, do the clap test and listen to what it’s like. And it was, and it’s a horrible room. Like it’s almost, it’s not perfectly square, but it’s almost perfectly square, you know, so it’s sort of like, and the table is virtually in the middle of that. So we’re kind of asking for problems. And anyway, so when we were testing it, we put them like all on a stack, listen, test it out. And it’s like, it was very echoey.
And I was like thinking, oh man, I don’t know how these are going to make that much difference. And then we spread them out around the room. And all of a sudden it was like, oh, it killed the sound like by over 80%, 85% maybe. And as more furniture has come in, you know, there’s a lounge in here now and my work desk is in here now and there’s a bookshelf. And so the more diffusion happens, the room sounds better the more stuff we put in it. But at first it just was like an astronomical difference between an untreated room and introducing, you know, 10 fibreglass cord panels, you know.
Luke knows that great sound is really only half the battle. The other half is building trust through a genuine connection with your listeners. Yeah, that trust component is huge. I definitely think when we started, all the guys that started with this together, that none of them, they were all doing it and enjoying it. But none of them truly thought that we could build something out of it, I think. Because, you know, the picture in most of the minds is, well, we’re just five random guys from a regional town in Australia. Like, why would anyone want to hear what we’re doing? That’s, you know, we were doing it mostly because we were loving it. But like, there was definitely that imposter syndrome of, well, what would we say that someone who’s like more talented and more educated wouldn’t say.
And I think the answer to that, and this is something I encourage anyone. And this is, this goes for music, this goes for podcasts, this is anybody in this space. The fact that you are doing it and you are a human means that it’s coming through a lens that nobody else has. And so there is always a market, there was always an audience for you because there’s no such thing as, there’s no such thing as a person who is exactly like another person. Because you, even if you’re saying the same thing, someone else may be saying, it’s unique because you’re expressing it through your lived experience. And so I think that was a great lesson that God doesn’t need you to be the top 1% in the world in order to use you. Like, He just needs you to be faithful and needs you to show up consistently.
And that’s a key word, by the way. Consistency is another massive difference that this made. We started, when we started this, we did it for almost a year. Releasing here and there, like when we had time. There was a point where we said, we are going to release every single Tuesday at 6am, like no matter what. And I have lost count of the number of Tuesday mornings I got up at 4am so I could edit and have something out at 6am. Like that’s just, you know, if I didn’t get time that week, that was just what I had to do at the end of the day. And we kept that cadence going from 2017 through to 2021. So like through, oh no, 20, excuse me, 2022. And after that, we took a bit of a hiatus to work on the studio and, you know, get video going. And like, so things have happened since then. But like, through that time frame, we never missed a release.
We just stuck to it and our traction, the amount of influence that we held, all of that went up dramatically the minute we started taking it seriously ourselves. So what I would say is, yes, take risks, try anything, but whatever you try, try it properly. You know, like actually commit and be consistent and that will make all the difference because people can see if you’re actually putting your all into something. And often that’s when they feel inspired to get behind it as well. Are you thinking of starting your own podcast? It’s never too late. And there are people out there who are dying to hear the message that God has laid upon your heart. Why not start now? Start as soon as possible because reps matter. The, you know, people say, oh, I need it to be perfect. I’ve heard this so many times.
I’ve spoken to a lot of people. I’ve probably helped. Personally, I’ve probably helped six or seven different podcasts that have started as a result of, you know, oh, hey, we want to start a podcast. You’re doing this. Can you give us some advice? And I’m like, you know, given some pointers and got them going of the ones that actually launched and got somewhere. The common element is that they, they weren’t interested. They wanted to make it as good as possible, but they didn’t let perfection stop them. And so I would say don’t let perfection stop you, but don’t ever give up on making it better. Always like continue, continue to look for where is the attention now? Where, you know, what, how do we do what we’re doing? Better. How do we serve the people better?
And that constant improvement process that can show up in your recording quality that, you know, that can be getting better equipment. And, you know, until you’re up to a professional level, that can be the quality of your thinking. If you’re, if you’re sharing, you know, like more, you know, direct teaching sort of content, but whatever it may be, look for ways to continually improve. Consistency and continual improvement. I think those are the two big things. And just start yesterday because, you know, the best time to start any podcast was always 10 years ago, but the second best time is today. Yes, that’s right.
The best time to start podcasting is indeed now. And I’ve got a special offer for you. If you are really keen to start your own podcast, we have a resource that you can download completely for free, which you’re going to learn about how to start your own podcast. So check that out. That will be in the description notes below. We hope this episode of Adventist Waves has given you a fresh perspective on how media can be a powerful tool for ministry. If you enjoyed today’s conversation, don’t forget to subscribe, leave a review and connect with us on social media. You can also support our work directly by becoming a patron at patreon.com forward slash Adventist underscore waves. Your generosity enables us to produce more high quality content and reach a wider audience. Special thanks to our production team at Blue Vineyard Audio and our producer, editor, mixer and sound designer, Kahn Ellmers. We’ll see you next week as we continue to explore the art of sharing the gospel through sound.
