Audio-Video-Text-What Format for My Sermons?
The other day someone emailed me about turning one of my websites into a internet TV show on his website. I visited the site and saw that it looked very impressive. I also searched and found 4 other sites that do the exact same thing. They charge you to put your feed up on their site.
Internet Ministry Not a Television Show
Because video and audio take up massive amounts of storage you need someone to host these files if you are looking to be a television show. I then remembered that this is what many churches are trying to do. They have a model of internet ministry as television show.
I then began to think about my own philosophy of web ministry and how people use the web. There are no doubt many people who go to the web to find video and audio of preachers. Because of the advent of high speed internet access to the masses this is becoming more and more an occurance. However, when I think about how people normally use the web I think of Google and Yahoo. Individuals find what they want and find it quickly.
Providing Data Quickly
A big blob of video or audio content does not provide accessible data quickly. One has to listen to the whole thing. I began to think of the individual who has a question about a Bible text addressed in a pastors sermon. If the pastor had put up an audio file alone then the questioner would not find that file when the questioner searched in his or her favorite search engine.
However the pastor who simply posts his whole sermon will get a hit on that very topic and provide the information to the user.
Get the Information to the User
Get the information to the user in the best form in the best way. Old fashion plain text posted to a website in bite sized chunks will be found by the search engines and inform web searchers for years to come.
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