Podcasting--Another Way to Spread Our Message Congratulations if you've figured out how to put sermons on your congregation's website for people to read. But don't stop there. Now there's more you can do with those sermons. It's called podcasting.A podcast is a "feed" of audio or video files placed on the Internet for anyone to hear or watch. Basically, if a minister puts his or her sermons on a website in podcast form, members of the congregation and others can listen to them at their computers or load them into shirt-pocket sized devices called MP3 players (iPods are one example), to listen to while driving, exercising, etc. Podcasting is a way of delivering sermons (or other text or video messages) to subscribers so that they are automatically delivered into your computer. For instance, if you subscribe to a minister's sermons, a new one will be delivered each week without you having to find it on the church website. Podcasting made it attractive for Sue Magidson to teach a class of seventh- and eighth-graders last fall at the UU Church of Berkeley, Calif. (511 members). When she teaches she misses the Sunday services, but podcasting keeps her connected. She receives the sermon podcasts and listens to them on her computer during the week. "I've read sermons before on the website, but podcasting brings them to life," she says. "It's not the same as being at church and experiencing the worship service, but it's a wonderful alternative for those Sundays when I can't be there." She also listens to the UUCB podcasts when she has to be out of town or was at a service and wants to hear the sermon again. Paul Worhach is the church's podcast coordinator. Adding a digital sound system last year opened the way for podcasting. The podcasts include the sermon and sometimes the children's story and a choral piece. The edited service is added to the website, which includes a piece of computer code called an "RSS feed." RSS (really simple syndication) allows Internet users to regularly receive new information from websites that change or add content. "An RSS feed is the engine of podcasting," says Worhach. He estimates that 100 people a week listen to the church's podcast services. The Rev. Chris Craethnenn, minister of religious education at Berkeley, hasn't heard much feedback from members. "It will take time to build," he says. "We have a generation now for whom podcasting is second nature and it's a resource that we as UUs need to use." What's required to podcast? Someone in the congregation who has Internet technology skills can probably create a podcast file each week from a digital or audio file of the sermon. Alex Gacic, webmaster at the UU Fellowship of the Emerald Coast (146), in Valparaiso, Fla., where the Rev. Rod Debs's sermons are now podcast, observes that most congregations could easily use this new format. While some congregations have the advantage of digital sound systems, it's possible to make sermon podcasts from analog files. That is, conventional audiocassettes. And you're better off finding someone in your congregation to explain it to you than to have InterConnections try to explain it. The short version is that you can do it with a tape player, an MP3 player such as an iRiver or iPod, a connecting cord, and the right piece of software. Gacic has created an email group where UU podcasters can share information: http://groups.google.com/group/UUPodcasters. Debs says he occasionally hears from someone out of the country or out of state about the podcasts. "At this early stage, I suspect that podcasts might help the Association more than individual congregations, just by increasing awareness of Unitarian Universalism." Resources
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