IT started as a way of encouraging youngsters to engage with the Bible – now it’s gone global.

Youngsters from Church of the Good Shepherd listening to Bible studies on their MP3 players

The Church of the Good Shepherd in Crookhorn offers podcasts of Bible studies to its 11 to 14-year-olds. It’s the first in the Anglican diocese of Portsmouth to do so.

Youth worker Max Cross writes the Bible studies and records his wife Suzy reading them. Max then edits the files and uploads them to the website.

They’ve discovered that the church youngsters prefer to download and listen to the podcasts on iPods and MP3 players, rather than reading the Bible and study notes.

And they’re not the only ones – the material has been downloaded by people across the world, from Argentina to New Zealand in the six months since the podcasts were first created.

Max, who is employed to work with the 11-14 year olds at the church, and his team run both a Sunday group – called Y-Front – and two Wednesday night Bible study groups for boys and girls that age.

“We were finding it difficult to engage the boys with the Bible, especially as many of those who come on Wednesdays don’t tend to come on Sundays,” he said. “We’d used books, some of which only worked for a while. The idea came that we could record devotionals that they could access every day.

“I normally do around five a week. Half of it is usually the actual Bible passage – we use ‘The Message’ version of the Bible – and then we include some practical thoughts about what that might mean for the young people. There’s a short prayer and then a call to act on what’s been learnt.

“On Wednesdays, we can then talk about that week’s devotionals – and perhaps listen to one all together. It does seem quite bizarre that they are happier to listen to Suzy via a podcast than me talking to them in a group, but they’ve grown up with this technology.

“And the technology we’re using to record the podcasts isn’t difficult – it’s the kind of thing people could set up in their own home. We have a microphone, recording software, sound editing software and the software to publish them.”

The Wednesday night group for boys is called Aftershock, so the podcasts are downloaded from www.aftershock.org.uk. They are free to download, and are usually updated on Tuesday nights.

Max is also the webmaster of the parish’s website – www.cogs.org.uk – where sermons from the Sunday services at Church of the Good Shepherd can also be downloaded as podcasts.