Behind the Scenes of Accent on the Bible
This blog post is a little different as it’s not written by Pastor Phil, but the guy behind the scenes. Hey, this is Odie Lofton. If you’re in the Colfax, IA area then you probably know me personally. Over the past 6 months or so I’ve had the privilege of building Pastor Phil’s website and getting all the technical aspects of his ministry through podcasts setup and distributed.
As of this post I believe we are up to about 23 episodes. Every single one of those has been recorded and produced in my recording studio. I then take care of prepping each show and publish to our podcast host which is PodBean and set up the post for easy listening on our website.
That’s not the only place you can hear Pastor Phil’s podcast programming of “Accent on the Bible.” We also publish to iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher and now featuring iHeart Radio.
The real winner for us, which we feel will greatly help our ability to get the message out to more people, is iHeart Radio. I believe it was a month-long review for them to finally approve our show for inclusion in their podcast directory. The reason we feel this is a huge milestone is iHeart Radio is a massive company with a huge footprint in the online and traditional radio market. IHeart radio used to be known as Clear Channel Communications. They still are one of the largest radio groups in the United States, of which WHO AM Radio is a part.
To be honest, I feel that they really are concerned with shows that can provide quality content and shows that stand the best chance of expanding listenership on their platform. So, for them to consider our show worthy enough to be listed along-side very popular podcasts like Oprah, Ben Shapiro and others is a major milestone. In fact, we are now starting to get requests from other podcast platforms for permission to be listed on their platforms. Of course, because many platforms pull their shows from the iTunes or Google Play platform you can find our show on many other sites as well. But please remember, if it’s not listed on our site, then we DO NOT indorse them.
All our shows originate with PodBean through a file called and RSS XML file. This file cues up the location of the original mp3 file that we upload, title, add artwork, description and other meta data. All our platforms that we are listed on pull the information from this file and post it on their platform automatically. This makes publishing much easier for us, but it also necessitates that we double check to make sure everything is correct as we cannot re-publish once we submit it the first time. As once we do, it sets off a chain reaction of the content being distributed across the world wide web.
We greatly appreciate all of you tuning in every week. Whether it’s on PastorPhilButler.com, Facebook, iHeart Radio or our other platforms. Your listenership is how we can grow. God’s Word is the truth and we need your help in sharing every episode with as many people as possible so that in 8 minutes or less, we can share a little truth with someone that could stir a change and grow their relationship with Christ.
As you might imagine, even though I volunteer and have built the website for Pastor Phil at no cost to him. There are still several hundred-dollar expenses incurred just in web hosting, podcast hosting, software and others. We need financial help to continue and grow this ministry. Please consider hitting the GIVE button at the bottom of any page on our website and help us grow to reach more and more people.
While I remain the man behind the scenes who holds the show together, Pastor Phil is a very hard working man of God who puts in a lot of time each week just to make sure the 5-8 minutes you hear are inspiring, engaging and causes you to think about the reality of God’s teaching and the prudence of applying it to your everyday life. That’s why I put all the effort into making the messages he prepares every week get to as many people as possible. I’m proud to not only be the producer for his podcasts but to be considered a friend.
Thank you for reading all about the behind the scenes of Accent on the Bible. Have a blessed day and we hope to have you join us every week and you can even provide feedback on our Facebook page.
In His service,
Odie Lofton Sr.
