This evening I check in on Port City Community Church’s website. While I was there I became excited after seeing that they had all of their messages on the website in VIDEO form. Check out their site at http://www.portcitychurch.org – I was able to attend all of their “What If” series.
In a YouTube world – almost everybody watches video online. Recently I watched Les Moonves talk about local CBS stations complaining about CBS’s Innertube. Innertube allows you to watch full episodes of our favorite CBS shows (basically CSI – are there any others?). Les boiled it down by saying that if CBS was going to survive then they would have to meet people where they are at, even if it takes away people from watching CBS in the traditonal TV form.
Some parts of the church world are actually ahead of the game for once, instead of trying to catch up like we normally have to do. Fellowship Church was one of the first to embed Windows Media Video into their website. This was way before embeded flash video or viral videos even existed. Since lifechurch.tv, Granger Community Church, Newspring Community, and many others have began broadcasting their services on the web.
Fellowship Church, after evolving from windows media to a short lived run with quicktime video, had their services available in three different qualities in flash video until their recent move to audio only. (More on Fellowship’s video evolution to come in a later post)
Unfortunately many churches don’t take the step into video and only feature audio clips of the sermon on the website. While Podcast have there place in the world – VIDEO is not the future… its the present.