NASHVILLE (BP) – For more than a year, the “SBC This Week” podcast hosted by Amy Whitfield and Jonathan Howe has delivered a weekly roundup of news and views from around the Southern Baptist Convention, featuring stories from Baptist Press and other outlets as well as interviews with SBC newsmakers.
A new podcast is available each Friday at www.sbcthisweek.com and via subscription.
Whitfield is director of communications at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, N.C., and made history as the first woman parliamentarian at the SBC annual meeting in St. Louis in June. Howe is director of strategic initiatives at LifeWay Christian Resources in Nashville and runs LifeWay president Thom Rainer’s podcast, “Rainer on Leadership.”
SBC This Week grew out of an ongoing mutual interest in the Southern Baptist Convention, Howe told Baptist Press.
“We were already having regular discussions centered on news and events in the Southern Baptist world, so we began exploring the idea of recording those discussions,” Howe said. “We kicked off with the first episode in May 2015 leading up to the convention in Columbus and have just kept on going.”
Whitfield and Howe interact on the podcast via video call.
SBC This Week is a resource to get more Southern Baptists involved in the united effort of the convention, Whitfield said.
“For years, conversations about the SBC have been more active in the weeks leading up to our annual meeting,” Whitfield told BP. “This makes sense as we get ready to gather and do the work of the messengers.
“But the reality is, the work of Southern Baptists is happening all year long through our entities and our churches. We think it’s important to be conversing about this all the time, because we are cooperating all the time,” Whitfield said. “A weekly wrap-up allows people to stay engaged in the process and not only understand what’s going on in the SBC but why it’s happening as well.”