Goodbye Radio, Hullo Internet

It was once thought that radio was the most economical of the large-scale broadcasting opportunities for evangelism. Now it looks like the Internet is taking over in this area too.

Many churches around the world are filing podcasts on their websites, and thus making the churches' sermons and other material available to those who might have listened to the radio in the past. And it's being done at almost no cost, which means that even small ministries can play a part in reaching listening audiences.

Only a couple of years ago, podcasts were virtually unknown to those outside the elite areas of the Internet world; now they're being downloaded enthusiastically by all sorts of Internet users. And since they can be transferred onto MP3 players, they're as accessible as radio was. (Remember when people used to carry 'trannies' on their shoulders in order to listen to music? Trannies were monoliths compared to the technology now available.)

Only a few months ago a question was asked in our church: what did people think was the most used part of the church website? It came as a surprise to most of us that the downloading of sermons was the top feature - and not by church members, but by people in various parts of the world.

Incidentally, Radio NZ has a screed of podcasts available. Check them out. And here's the link to the DCBC podcast page.

The symbol at the top of the page is that used by Apple to represent podcasting.

Moving on

Television watching is on the decline, newspapers are folding (if you'll excuse the pun) around the world, and magazines come and go at the drop of a hat (not helped by the fact that many magazine owners think the reading public merely wants wads of glossy advertising when they buy a magazine).
The culprit (but not the only culprit) is the Internet. News is free and much more widespread; opinion is available from one extreme to the other; television programmes are watchable when you want to see them, and so are movies.
The Christian News website notes:
What does all this mean for the Christian community here in NZ and around the world? Rather than the gloom of failing newspapers, the internet has been a boon for Christian ministries. Finally we can get our content into the marketplace of ideas and compete fairly in cyberspace, something that has not been possible in newspapers or TV previously. Christians now have access to everything from written articles to MP3 seminary lecture courses to full video sermons, lectures, debates, and numerous fascinating other cutting edge materials, and all by the finest scholars in the world. We now have a playing field with the secular world that is more level than anything for a long time.
The times are certainly changing (and not just The Times of London). But is the Internet still basically the toy of wealthier nations? How many third world countries have real access to it?

Apropos of the above, I've just come across the Alltop site again. It was something that popped up sometime ago (I've written about it on one of my blogs at some time in history) but I'd forgotten about it. There are innumerable versions of it, but for those on this blog the interesting ones might be the All the Top Christianity News, or the News for pastors, ministers and church staff (which goes under the basic heading of 'Church').
Alltop provides a work-in-progress type list of blogs, sites and other sundry Internet paraphenalia that are 'hot' at the moment. The aforesaid blogs etc may well drop off in time, depending on their level of interest. While they're on Alltop, they show up as separate sections within the page, and, by running your mouse over the top of a line, you can see what the post is about.
It's totally time-consuming, but informative. Don't do it when you're supposed to be doing something more important.

Stolen Goods: Tempted to Plagiarize

Understanding the necessity of citation and the damage of deceit

Thomas G. Long, well-known for his own books on preaching, has written an excellent article on the problems inherent in 'borrowing' other people's sermons from the Internet, or other sources, in order to use them as our own in our own churches. He looks at the pros and cons, at the ethics, and whether there's a difference in plagiarising someone's sermon compared to plagiarising someone's other writings.

His conclusions are mostly against the practice, but it's plain from the comments that follow the article that some people regard it as normal to preach someone else's sermon on a Sunday.