One of our exciting things which as church we are looking to do over the next while is developing a ministry to the housebound, in terms of Recording our services and providing them online legally... there are various "hoops" to jump through as far as copyright, permissions from participants and practicalities of sorting out a team who will actually do this, as well as providing hosting etc etc.
However on my blog, it seems a good idea to explain why a church might want to record their service and make it available over the internet.
One of my passions is to see the church at large, use and embrace technology to further the kingdom of God, to connect with loads of different sorts of people. One of the most important things for me to say at the outset - it is not being considered because I think our parish needs a new gimmick or because we are better than anyone else - NOT AT ALL.
This idea has come from my pastoral visits, of meeting parishioners in their own homes and who have lamented that they now due to health reasons are unable to come out to church on a Sunday Morning. These same people have been faithful members of the church week in week out for most if not all of their lives. It is from this starting point that I set about looking for a solution to allow them to tune into a church service.
This will NOT become a way for people to "skip church" If I hear of that happening I will be extremely saddened. However it could become useful, if people are unable to come to church on health grounds for various services .
I have, over the years had various experiences of ministries to the house-bound - Tape ministry, CD's ... and it seemed to me that there was indeed a need to develop this ... the next natural step is MP3's
I know many churches have an MP3 ministry for their sermons alone I feel that the whole worship service does need to be available - hymns, liturgy, sermon ... the lot.
We are not there yet ... there are still some hurdles to overcome but it is an adventure ...
The vision presented to vestry was something like this ...
what if we could reach out to those who are not able to come to church by providing them with an audio recording of our service ... beginning to end announcements, hymns, prayers, sermon etc etc the whole sunday service?
what if this was available free of charge to them ?
what if they had a computer and within 10 mins to an hour of the service finishing this was uploaded and available from our website ?
what if they didn’t have a computer but we were able to provide them with a player which a parishioner to could bring to them on a weekly basis - so that they get a visit from someone - what if they were able to follow along with hymns / prayer books ?
what if they are in hospital and from the bedside internet phones they are able to tune into st columba’s service just 10mins / hour after the service had finished?
what if we were able to train up a rota of volunteers to record, edit(if necessary) and upload these to the web sunday by sunday ?
what if we are able to sort out the copyright of hymns* easily?
what if this could be another way to engage with those who are not coming to church?
So what are the implications of this for vestry?
Firstly, permission is sought from vestry to bring in recording equipment to church ... which we already have access to -ie. I have a wee mp3 recorder which will do the job in the interim
Secondly we will need to get permission from preachers / musicians to record
Thirdly there may well be a cost implication to the copyright - as we have to purchase a licence.
Fourthly for those who don’t have access to the internet we would provide inexpensive mp3 players
There is no church that I am aware of that is currently doing this and I firmly believe that it could make a real difference - connecting our services to those who cannot get out for whatever reason. We also through our website can provide people with a copy of the pew news, the liturgy used for the particular service they are listening to.
I have, over the years had various experiences of ministries to the house-bound - Tape ministry, CD's ... and it seemed to me that there was indeed a need to develop this ... the next natural step is MP3's
I know many churches have an MP3 ministry for their sermons alone I feel that the whole worship service does need to be available - hymns, liturgy, sermon ... the lot.
We are not there yet ... there are still some hurdles to overcome but it is an adventure ...
The vision presented to vestry was something like this ...
what if we could reach out to those who are not able to come to church by providing them with an audio recording of our service ... beginning to end announcements, hymns, prayers, sermon etc etc the whole sunday service?
what if this was available free of charge to them ?
what if they had a computer and within 10 mins to an hour of the service finishing this was uploaded and available from our website ?
what if they didn’t have a computer but we were able to provide them with a player which a parishioner to could bring to them on a weekly basis - so that they get a visit from someone - what if they were able to follow along with hymns / prayer books ?
what if they are in hospital and from the bedside internet phones they are able to tune into st columba’s service just 10mins / hour after the service had finished?
what if we were able to train up a rota of volunteers to record, edit(if necessary) and upload these to the web sunday by sunday ?
what if we are able to sort out the copyright of hymns* easily?
what if this could be another way to engage with those who are not coming to church?
So what are the implications of this for vestry?
Firstly, permission is sought from vestry to bring in recording equipment to church ... which we already have access to -ie. I have a wee mp3 recorder which will do the job in the interim
Secondly we will need to get permission from preachers / musicians to record
Thirdly there may well be a cost implication to the copyright - as we have to purchase a licence.
Fourthly for those who don’t have access to the internet we would provide inexpensive mp3 players
There is no church that I am aware of that is currently doing this and I firmly believe that it could make a real difference - connecting our services to those who cannot get out for whatever reason. We also through our website can provide people with a copy of the pew news, the liturgy used for the particular service they are listening to.
This, coupled with our parish website, youth website, Silver Surfer classes and the Church of Ireland worship section hopefully will provide those who another way to engage with St. Columba's
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