By Cheryl Sloan Wray
Following the trend in popular culture to download music, videos and more onto potable media players such as the iPod, Baptist churches in Alabama and across the country are offering podcasts of sermons and other religious broadcasts.
At Cottage Hill Baptist Church, Mobile, in Mobile Baptist Association, members and others are able to download various broadcasts from throughout the week to their iPod or MP3 player by using the online services at www.itunes.com or www.yahoo.com and searching by the pastor’s name — “Keith Thomas” — or the church’s name — “Cottage Hill.” It’s a service that Melanie Adcock, director of information technology for Cottage Hill Baptist, is excited about. She said that the podcasts, along with the church’s Web site — www.cottagehill.org — and online sermons, allow interested individuals to learn about the church before they walk through the door.
Adcock said podcasts were introduced at Cottage Hill this past November and are updated weekly. The church offers podcasts of its Sunday morning, Sunday evening and “Men of Mobile” sermons. It also has all of the sermons from 2005 and archives of the past two years of “Men of Mobile” available. A podcast directory can be found on the church’s Web site, as well as iTunes and Yahoo.
Interest in the podcasts is growing by leaps and bounds, Adcock said. “In March … more than 600 individual messages were downloaded via podcast,” she noted. “The most downloads came from the Feb. 26 message … ‘Surviving Jacob: Let’s Get Ready to Rumble,’ with 146 individual downloads.”
Adcock said the podcasts make it easy for members to keep up with sermons when they are unable to attend church because of distance or job responsibilities.
“Most people with iPods take them with them wherever they go. They can listen wherever and whenever they want to,” she said.
The podcasts also allow potential visitors to “check out” the church in a private way.
“The online sermons via streaming audio or free MP3 download, plus our podcasts, give the potential visitor a feel for what our pastors are like and what kind of message they are likely to hear,” Adcock said.
This trend of posting podcasts is growing as more Americans look to the Internet as their source for information about the world.
An article in the December 2005 issue of Christian Computing Magazine reported that 67 percent of Americans turn to the Internet for spiritual answers. Baptist leaders say podcasting appeals to those Web-savvy individuals who also want a convenient way to get spiritual answers.
“With podcasting, you download the file that appeals to you and listen to it whenever and wherever you want,” said Gary McClure, manager of marketing for LifeWay Christian Resources’ e-business department.
He said podcasting is the future in technology used by churches as one-quarter of American consumers own digital audio players and are always looking for interesting downloads. “Podcasting is the next wave of ministry opportunity.”
LifeWay has taken its interest one step further and has introduced its own podcast directory at https://digitalpass.lifeway.com/podcasts. McClure said the site is a free repository of podcasts that users can download to their iPod, MP3 or other devices for playback. “The files are housed on the site itself, so users can download directly from there,” he said.
Other Baptist churches in the state offer podcasts as well. First Baptist Church, Huntsville, in Madison Baptist Association, posts each week’s sermons via podcasts on https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/first-baptist-church-huntsville/id1224626684
Hunter Street Baptist Church, Hoover, in Birmingham Baptist Association also offers podcasts of its sermons, along with PDFs of sermon notes, on its Web site, https://www.hunterstreet.org/sunday-archive
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