Guest Guidelines

Thank you so much for being a part of A Beautiful Church Podcast! We are honored to have you as a guest. The mission of this podcast is to highlight the beauty and diversity of God’s Church – both in Chattanooga and the Church at large. This is a resource of the Chattanooga House of Prayer. We’ve put together some guidelines below that will help make the most of our time together. Thank you again for your time!

Conversation Guidelines

Timeless Content: Each episode is meant to be a resource that lasts for a long time – so rather than dating the episode by talking about upcoming events, we aim to talk about things of timeless importance for the Church.

Let’s Focus on What We Agree About: A guiding principle of ours is that 97% of what the Church believes about God and about what He requires of humankind is the same – we just have different ways of understanding many of the same things. We want this “common ground” to be the focal point of the podcast and what we seek to bring out in each episode.

Controversial/Divisive Subject Matter: Please be sensitive about bringing up needless controversy such as sexuality, alcohol, smoking, inappropriate language or joking, etc. Though some of these things might not offend you, we want to do our best to honor the various beliefs of our audience.

Understand the Limitations of Media: We respect the limitations of media and of a podcast format. A podcast can only do so much to accurately communicate complex ideas. Therefore, we try to avoid commonly used but loaded terminology or “buzz words” for which people have preconceived ideas. (Ex. Instead of just saying “critical race theory” – explain what you understand that idea to mean.) Our desire is to push listeners to do their own research, build relationships with people “across the aisle,” and to have their own conversations and spiritual encounters with God and His people.

Disagreeing Well and Honoring Each Other: We understand that there will be points of disagreement. We want to create a culture where ideas and points of view that differ from ours can be heard peaceably, and be as loving as possible to people who disagree with us.

**We retain the right to edit out anything that we think may be divisive for our audience.**

Technical Guidelines

Recording In Studio: For those recording in studio, please arrive 15 minutes early and ensure that your phone is set to silent. We will take the first 5-10 minutes of recording for our producer to check audio levels.

Recording Remotely:

• When recording remotely, we use the platform Riverside. We will send you a link for the session via text or email.

• Please be sure to tune in from a computer with a Chrome browser that’s up-to-date. Make sure that you have given access to Chrome to use the mic/camera and have enabled screen sharing.

• Please check internet stability to make sure you’re receiving a good signal. Ethernet cable is preferred over WiFi.

• Please close all applications that don’t need to be open during the recording. This prevents CPU overload. Please close all programs that try to use your mic or camera.

• Before the recording starts, please choose a location in your home or office that is quiet and where you are unlikely to pick up background noises. We recommend recording in a room that’s well treated (carpeted, more pillows, more curtains, etc.) as it helps dampen echoes. Please ensure that your phone is set to silent.

• Please use an external mic – this could be a professional mic, Apple headphones with a built-in mic, or even your phone (Voice Memo App).

• Please use headphones. Headphones (regardless of their quality) will cut down on echoes and interference being picked up.

• We will take the first 5-10 minutes of recording to troubleshoot any audio/video issues.