Church 2.0

Why Podcasting Your Sermons Is a Bad Idea and What to Do About It

Church 2.0 means leveraging technology to create highly interactive, highly collaborative, and task-specific ministry contexts.

Church 2.0 and Podcasting

• Newsstands vs. Doorstep Delivery - Podcasting technology delivers content to the user's doorstep.
• Podcasting is NOT putting MP3s on your church website.
• Any digital file can be podcasted--MP3s, video, PDFs, PowerPoint, etc.
• Podcasting only your sermons is like driving your BMW M6 convertible in 1st gear only. There's SO MUCH MORE that can be done if you'll just step on the gas.
• Feedvalidator.org proofreads your podcast feed.

Creative Podcasting for Sermons (Or Any Teaching Setting)

• Invite questions and feedback on your sermon and podcast responses during the week.
• Podcast your sermon on Monday and gather to discuss it on Sunday morning.
• Provide supplementary material to your sermon in the way of historical context or a closer look at resources you referenced in the sermon.
• Podcast a roundtable discussion among church members about more controversial areas of your sermon.
• Podcast an interview with another expert on the subject of your sermon--particularly the more controversial or technical parts of your sermon.

Creative Podcasting Beyond the Sermon

• Leadership training for ministry volunteers
• Podcasts with members of your church
• Interviews with authors or other experts on issues important to your church
• Interviews or devotional thoughts from other staff members or church leaders
• Commentary on news items that affect your church--particularly items that your church would like you to weigh in on but that you don't otherwise have a forum for.

Week One: Balancing Technology and Mission

Show Notes:

Web 2.0 - One of Time's 'Top 10 Buzz Words for 2006'
Key concepts are using the web in highly interactive, collaborative, and task-oriented ways

Specific Technologies We'll Cover:
Podcasting
Blogging
Social Networking Sites (Facebook, MySpace, MyChurch.org, etc.)
YouTube

Assumption: You can figure out the fine details of how to implement these technologies. If you have specific technical questions, email me. If I collect enough questions, I'll do a separate episode specifically on these questions.

Starting Point: Mission. Most churches AREN'T clear on this.

Impact and Reach. Impact tends to be more internal and local. Reach tends to be more external and at-a-distance.