By Robert Marus
MONTGOMERY, Ala. (ABP) -- Little
white headphones that have revolutionized the way Americans listen
to music may also revolutionize the way they learn about God.
Hundreds of churches and Christian
institutions are using podcasts or other easily downloadable audio
and video files to spread the good word around the globe with the
simple click of a mouse.
“Podcasts” began as brief audio
programs submitted by artists to Apple’s popular iTunes audio-file
clearinghouse. People then downloaded them to their iPods, the
portable digital-audio players that, in the past five years, have
revolutionized the way many Americans listen to music.
Now the term refers to any audio or
video program placed online and made available for customers to
download automatically to their computers and iPods for later
listening.
“A lot of our members don’t live in
Alabama, so this is a way for them to get Jay’s message everywhere.
And you can take it with you,” said Amanda Smith, communications
director for the First Baptist Church of Montgomery, Ala. The
congregation began podcasting pastor Jay Wolf’s sermons in January.
Smith said the feature has been very
popular among students away at college or former members who have
moved away.
She said podcasting only requires a
minor investment of her time and church resources. She uses a
“feeder program” to translate digital audio files of the sermons
into the kind of computer code needed to distribute them on iTunes.
Members can then log on to iTunes, search for the church on the
site’s podcast page, and subscribe -- for free.
The iTunes site automatically
downloads new sermons to each subscriber’s computer as soon as they
become available. Subscribers then can transfer those files to their
iPods.
“It’s relatively easy to do, so it’s
not anything -- I mean, it’s cost-effective,” Smith said.
At First Baptist Church in Lubbock,
Texas, the communications staff has provided varied content.
“Right now, we’re just doing
sermons,” said Chris Crawford, the church's director of media. “But
we’ve done short interviews; we’ve done videos [and] different promo
stuff.”
While the Lubbock and Montgomery
churches have thousands of worshipers on an average Sunday, smaller
congregations are also getting into podcasting -- and not just
simple sermon files. At First Baptist Church of North Kansas City,
Mo., music minister/tech guru Kevin Gibson has taken online the
church’s historic commitment to missions.
“We have a lot of connections with
missionaries in our congregation here, and it’s a good way for our
members to connect with missionaries in places like Cambodia or
Thailand,” Gibson said. He has used Skype -- a free program that
allows people to converse over the Internet as if they are on the
telephone -- to interview missionaries. He then edits the
conversations and posts them online.
The Missouri church is not using an
iTunes feed to syndicate the downloadable files, but that may come
in the future. For now, Gibson said, he’s experimenting with content
-- spending a few hours a week on creating professional-sounding
podcasts with editing software --and getting good feedback from
members of all generations.
“I think it will be worth the payoff
in the end,” he said. “And particularly with the younger generation,
they have iPods, mp3 players, what have you. And they’re used to
multitasking -- they’re listening to a podcast, they’re doing
homework, they’re eating all simultaneously.”
-30-
|
