MONTGOMERY, Ala.—Little white headphones that began, about five years ago, revolutionizing the way Americans listen to music may also revolutionize the way they learn about God.
Hundreds of churches and other Christian institutions are using podcasts or other easily downloadable audio and video files to spread the good word around the globe—literally—with the simple click of a mouse.
“Podcast” is a term that originated with brief audio programs that artists or television celebrities would submit to Apple's popular iTunes audio-file clearinghouse. People would then download them to their iPods, the portable digital-audio players that, in the past five years, have revolutionized the way many Americans listen to music.
Now it commonly refers to any audio or video program placed online and made available for customers to subscribe to and download automatically to their computers, to be placed on a portable audio device for later listening.
“A lot of our members don't live in Alabama, so this is a way for them to get Jay's message everywhere. And you can take it with you,” said Amanda Smith, communications director for the First Baptist Church of Montgomery, Ala. The congregation began podcasting Pastor Jay Wolf's sermons in January.
Smith said the feature has been very popular among students away at college or former members who have moved away.
She noted podcasting only requires a minor investment of her time and the church's resources. She uses a “feeder program” to translate digital audio files of the sermons into the kind of computer code needed to distribute them on iTunes. Members can then log onto iTunes, search for the church on the site's podcast page, and subscribe—for free.
The iTunes site then automatically downloads new sermons to each subscriber's computer as soon as they become available. Subscribers can transfer those files to their portable audio devices.
“It's relatively easy to do, so it's not anything—I mean, it's cost-effective,” Smith said.
At First Baptist Church in Lubbock, Texas, the communications staff has provided varied content—not only sermons, but also short interviews, videos and promotional material.
While the Lubbock and Montgomery churches have thousands of worshippers on an average Sunday, smaller congregations also are getting into podcasting—and not just simple sermon files. At First Baptist Church of North Kansas City, Mo., music minister/tech guru Kevin Gibson has taken the church's historic commitment to missions online.
“We have a lot of connections with missionaries in our congregation here, and it's a good way for our members to connect with missionaries in places like Cambodia or Thailand,” Gibson said. He has used Skype—a free program that allows people to converse over the Internet as if they were on the telephone—to interview missionaries. He then edits the conversations and posts them online.
The Missouri church is not actually using an iTunes feed yet to syndicate the downloadable files, but that may come in the future.
For now, Gibson said, he's experimenting with content—spending a few hours a week on creating professional-sounding podcasts with editing software—and getting good feedback from members of all generations.
“I think it will be worth the payoff in the end,” he said. “And particularly with the younger generation. They have iPods, mp3 players, what have you. And they're used to multitasking—they're listening to a podcast, they're doing homework, they're eating all simultaneously.”