Four podcasts with thousands of listeners originate from SBTS and extend the seminary’s ministry to thousands beyond the seminary—encouraging pastors, missionaries, and church planters, as well as laypeople.
The Briefing
is SBTS President Albert Mohler’s daily podcast. Last September, the program celebrated 10 years of analyzing daily events in the news from a Christian perspective.
The Briefing’s audience is significant: at least 80,000 listeners per day and 400,000 downloads per week. The decision to move from a one-hour radio show to a 25-minute podcast was motivated mainly by the medium’s flexibility both for host and listeners. “The Briefing is intended to be where enduring Christian truth and the headlines collide, where biblical truth and matters of cultural urgency intersect,” Mohler said. “And that’s what makes it fun. I get to talk about—and help Christians think about— the most important issues of the day. That keeps me at it.”
The Amazon to Himalayas podcast
was launched in October 2020 and produces new episodes on a weekly basis during the fall and spring semesters, taking breaks in winter and summer.
Paul Akin, dean of the Billy Graham School of Evangelism, Missions and Ministry, hosts the program. Each episode features a conversation with a missionary who shares how God is at work in their particular missional context. Amazon to the Himalayas has featured guests from all over the globe including Kenya, Brazil, Middle East, Europe, North America, South America, and all over Asia. “I have heard from many missionaries that they have been encouraged to hear what the Lord is doing in other parts of the world,” Akin said. “They are often isolated and unaware and this provides a way for them to hear encouraging things that are happening in other parts if the world.”
The Urban Ministry Podcast
launched in 2019 with two dozen episodes. It is aimed at encouraging church planters in an urban context. Each episode features a minister serving faithfully in an urban context, sometimes internationally, sometimes here in the United States. Timothy Paul Jones, C. Edwin Gheens professor of Christian Ministry and director of the Dehoney Center for Urban Ministry, hosts each episode. “Many listeners are also serving in church revitalization,” Jones said. “I want people to love the locations where God has placed them, whether that’s in the city, in a small town, or in a rural context. I hope that God works through their renewed love of their context to equip listeners to share the gospel more effectively wherever they are.”
Pastor Well
is a podcast by a veteran pastor-theologian aimed at pastors at all stages of the ministry. Hershael York, dean of the School of Theology and professor of preaching at SBTS and longtime pastor of the Buck Run Baptist Church in Frankfort, Kentucky, hosts the program.
Pastor Well launched in May of 2019 and recently wrapped up its third season. In each episode, York interviews well-known and lesser-known figures in ministry from across the evangelical world and the Southern Baptist Convention. Recent episodes have featured Steve Gaines, Johnny Hunt, Ray Ortlund, Michael Reeves, and Christopher Ash.