Faith Grows Podcast Review

How’s your faith these days?
Feeling pretty good about it?
You’re not sure?  You gave it up?

Regardless of where your faith guage might be on this particular day, I would like to tell you about a very enjoyable faith-based experience I had and give you my Faith Grows Podcast review of the first episode.

My Path to the Faith Grows Podcast

I’ve been following Lorie Brumfield on YouTube for a few years now, as well as other social media.  She’s a delightful Christian vlogger who has an angelic voice when she sings.  Lorie is married to Jack Brumfield, who does everything technical for her brand, provides accompaniment music, mans the camera – I think you get my point.

Jack seldom appeared onscreen in Lorie’s videos, but I knew he was the one doing all the behind-the-scenes magic!

I then – just recently – read on Lorie’s social media that Jack would be coming out with his own podcast!  Immediately, I sprang into action.  I followed his social media, subscribed to his website when it came out, and then it happened: the first three podcast episodes were released.

Have you ever just known ahead of time that something was going to be exactly what you need?  That’s how it was for me when I heard about Jack’s new podcast.  But then I listened to the first episode….

Faith Grows Podcast Review

Episode 001: Discipleship Series | Faith

Clueless Gent’s Rating

The first episode of Faith Grows Podcast just blew me away!  As soon as Jack started speaking, I knew I was in for an evangelical treat!  He definitely has the voice.  ‘Know what I mean?

You may be familiar with Joel Osteen.  Maybe you’ve heard one of his sermons or podcasts.  He certainly knows how to trigger the emotions of a crowd.  Joel Osteen also has the voice.

There is a distinct contrast between Jack Brumfield’s delivery and that of Joel Osteen: when I listen to Jack, I feel like he’s just talking to me and no one else.  I can’t attribute that to the headphones, because I’ve also listened to Joel Osteen podcasts on headphones.  There’s a difference between the two of them.  Huge!

To ensure that I don’t forget to mention anything, I’m going to divide the rest of this up into two parts: content and wrapper.  Maybe it would help to think of it as message and delivery.

Jack’s Message (Content)

According to its website, the core mission of Faith Grows is “to aid in making disciples who make other disciples.”  In other words, it’s all about paying it forward.

Jack is beginning his podcast with a 10 episode theme, titled The Discipleship Series, which goes direct to the core of the brand.  First up in this series is an episode about faith.

Faith is really the heart of christianity, isn’t it?  Jack tells us – in his tranquil voice  – what faith is and what faith is not.  He explains how faith is not the same as belief.  (If you want to know why, listen to the podcast.)

Jack reinforced his message by quoting appropriate scriptures from the Bible.  Personally, I loved how he used scriptures from both the Old and the New Testaments.  It demonstrated that faith has been important to God from the very beginning, and Jack isn’t just making this stuff up!

Moving on to a little history about faith in the Bible, Jack starts in the Book of Genesis, and he ends with an explanation of how the only difference in faith between the Old and the New Testaments is which side of the cross/history we are looking from.  In the Old Testament, we have faith in the promise of the Messiah, and in the New Testament we have faith that the Messiah atoned for our sin.

I should say that none of this feels like a biblical history lesson.  In this lesson – and I suspect in all future podcasts – Jack is not trying to show us how much he knows about the Bible.  Rather, he provides us with relevant scriptures that we can use in our own relationship with God.

I should also mention that throughout the episode, Jack talks about his personal experiences with faith.  Sometimes they’re humorous, and other times I found them to be very uplifting.

Jack ends the lesson with where we go from here, and he sets the path for the remainder of the Discipleship Series.  Lastly, he goes into something that I can only describe as a “meditative reflection.”  More on that later.

Jack’s Delivery (Wrapper)

There are so many things that I enjoyed about the way Jack delivered his message.  I hope I can squeeze them all in.

First, I think he chose the perfect length for his episodes.  I’ve seen many other podcasters with episodes that are an hour or longer.  Faith Grows episodes seem to be between 20 and 40 minutes.  Perfect!

Each episode comes with a downloadable (and free) outline.  (Figure 1 shows the first page of the outline for the first episode.). The outlines are clearly available on faithgrows.org.

As I mentioned before,  I felt like Jack was talking directly to me throughout the podcast.  I don’t know how important that is to other listeners, but it’s quite significant to me.

Have I mentioned the original music yet?  Probably not, but that’s just me saving the best for last.  However, it’s not really “the best” because it’s all good!  In the beginning of the podcast, and again at the end, Jack includes some original piano music that I’m sure he wrote and performed.  The music is more meaningful (to me) at the end, but I’ll get to that.

Regarding accessibility, there are currently no full transcripts of episodes for hearing impaired users.  However, this is just one of too many podcasts that do not have full transcripts available.  I think Faith Grows is a step above the rest in this regard because they do provide outlines.  Further, I suspect that full transcripts will be coming to this podcast at some future point.  (When they do, I will come back and update my comment.)

“Meditative Reflection”

This is what I found to be particularly fascinating about the podcast.  (I saved it for the end of my post to add emphasis.)  After the lesson, the piano music fades in, and Jack invites us in to some prayer, reflection and meditation.

This is really hard for me to explain.  I highly encourage you to experience it for yourself.  This part of the podcast seemed to temporarily take me to a different level of consciousness.

Hey, I can see your eyeballs rolling around!  I’m serious here!  This is good stuff!!

Between the music and Jack’s voice, I could feel my heart and my mind opening and becoming receptive to what he was saying.  This really is prayer, reflection and meditation.  I’m guessing that’s what Jack was going for when he crafted this style of delivery.

The Faith Grows Podcast is exactly what I needed in my spiritual life to glean where I am and where I want to go.   Will I listen to the next two episodes that are currently available?  I already have!  Will I listen to future podcasts?  What do you think?

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