In the April edition of the Social Shout Out, hosts Brock Eastman and Evan Reedall answer your questions about the Last Chance Detectives, contests, Album 58: The Ties That Bind, what they did for Easter, the Odyssey Adventure Club, and more. You can watch the video below.
On this week's episode of the Official Adventures in Odyssey Podcast, writer Kathy Buchanan and consultant Leanna Summers share true stories from the Compassion International inspired two-part exclusive Odyssey Adventure Club episode “Mission: Unaccomplished.” Plus, hear a preview of that episode as well as a preview of the new collection, Wooton’s Whirled History. You can listen to the podcast here. Today's Adventures in Odyssey episode review from the AIO Update is of Karen from Album 3: Heroes. In this episode Donna Barclay tries to cope when her best friend, Karen Crosby, becomes ill with cancer. You can read our full episode review below. Last November, Focus on the Family Radio Theatre released their new drama, C. S. Lewis At War: The Dramatic Story Behind Mere Christianity. It provides a rare insight into Lewis’s life, friends, and family, illuminating a time of personal difficulty that also brought forth some of his most influential works. In addition to the three-hour audio drama production, C. S. Lewis at War includes a complete and unabridged dramatic reading of the book Mere Christianity. And now, the release date for the companion book by Paul McCusker has been set. The upcoming C. S. Lewis & Mere Christianity: The Crisis that Created a Classic will be released in stores on July 1st of this year. You can read the book's summary below. Mere Christianity is one of the best books of Christian apologetics ever written. Arguably, no book other than the Bible itself has had as much influence for the cause of the gospel over the past 60 years. The story of how that message came to be created, during the rigors of World War II in England, is fascinating in and of itself. But it also addresses a very important question: How do we present the gospel effectively to a culture that has Christian foundations but has become largely secularized and ignorant of biblical truth? It's been about two months since we released an editorial on the AIO Update and we thought we'd do it again. This latest editorial is called Take It from the Flop. It talks about Album 1 and Album 51 and where you should start listening to Adventures in Odyssey. Don't forget to rate it out of 10 after you've read it. You can also submit ideas and suggestions for future editorials on our contact page. The next Adventures in Odyssey episode review from the AIO Update is of Thank You, God from Album 3: Heroes. In this episode the gang from Odyssey enjoy Thanksgiving dinner and Whit tells the story of how his stepmother changed his life. You can read the episode review below. During the summer of 2012 Adventures in Odyssey kicked off its 25th anniversary celebration. As part of this celebration, the Odyssey team offered a special opportunity: the chance to have your script become an Odyssey episode. The College Writer's Scholarship Contest was launched at that time. Ever since the first-place winner was announced to be Angela Phillips with her script entitled "A Jay in the Life", we have been waiting for that episode to be released. Another winner was Katie Wynn with her script "Big Trouble Under the Big Top" which was included on Album 57: A Call to Something More. But what about Phillips' script? We now have confirmation from Focus on the Family that the "A Jay in the Life" script will not be produced into an AIO episode. They said that although they "enjoyed the originality employed in this creative effort, its plot took several characters in directions that conflicted with our already established storylines." We at the AIO Update speculate that this script would have drastically altered the character of Jay Smouse. Will the College Writer's Scholarship Contest return? It’s possible the team may at some point launch a similar competition for writers, but have no plans to do so in the immediate future. Should the contest return? Leave your comments below. We've been releasing episode reviews weekly since August of last year. As the reviewer, I personally think my appreciation for AIO episodes has been greatly increased as a result. And hopefully the quality of my reviews has been improving over time as well. This week's Adventures in Odyssey episode review is of Heroes from Album 3. In this episode superstar basketball player "Lightning" Livingston opens a sports store in Odyssey, but a scathing exposé reveals more than megafan Jimmy Barclay wanted to know. You can read our full episode review of Heroes below. In today's edition of the Official Adventures In Odyssey Podcast hosts Bob and Jesse introduce a brand-new never-before-heard fully-produced deleted scene from the episode The Bible Network from Album 56: The Grand Design, which aired in Fall 2012. They also interview the people behind the scenes, including writer Marshal Younger and sound designer Christopher Diehl. You can listen here. Co-host of Adventures in Odyssey's Social Shout Out, author of The Quest for Truth book series among other books, and Odyssey Adventure Club producer Brock Eastman has just announced that he will be moving on from working at Focus on the Family and taking a new job at Compassion International, a Christian child sponsorship organization with headquarters in Colorado Springs, Colorado. He says that "There will be travel that we can do as a family, and we look forward to this new chapter in our life. We often have to look back to see the amazing things God did or is doing in our lives or how He has been preparing us for something all along, this job is that sort of story." You can read Brock's full blog post here. |