Using CDs as Outreach

[John Dobbs]

How one church is using CDs to reach out ... link from a tweet on James Nored's twitter stream. By the way, the link is to Kingdom Tapes...so they do have a product to sell...but I think it's pretty neat how this church is using these CDs.

http://www.kingdom.com/kb_results.asp?ID=31

Questions ...

*This church appears to be passing out sermons ... good idea?

*Couldn't you produce a CD with in-office equipment on various topics and make them available?

*Love the funeral home idea ... what other places might be open to sharing your CDs?

*Would a DVD be better?

What do you think?

[Ed Dodds]

I'm not certain at this point what the actual installed base of CD vs DVD players in cars, trucks etc. is but my assumption is that a lot of this kind of media is "consumed" during commutes, fwiw. So that might factor in the choice.

Others: cancer clinics, hospice, whatever medical places related to folks having their world view/expectations jarred -- for example, most folks having a baby don't realistically consider that their child could be born with a disability or that their parents will have Alzheimer's until it actually occurs. Have materials available in the places where these events are commonly diagnosed. Course, the problem with this is that at this point many churches don't do anything but pay lip service to involving congregation members in the care giving duties of one another, advocating that some|more state budgets should be targeted to these needs ( http://tnfamilysupport.org ; http://www.fulfillthepromise.org ) in lieu of, or in addition to, congregational involvement, and most congregations are probably still inaccessible to folks with disabilities (see if someone in a wheelchair can make an announcement from the same "stage" level the preacher usually uses {ramps available, etc.}) , even nearly a decade after the national council of churches began boosting NOD's accessible churches program - http://www.ncccusa.org/news/00news86.html

It occurs to me that youth, where a lot of evangelism concerns are currently targeted, are using bittorrent and participating in multilevel multiplayer games. "Seeding" the bit repositories and developing games which have "informational presences" is something the computer science /business management classes at Christian Colleges and universities could focus on creating (while getting real world experience and college credit) and create outreaches to congregations in collaboration with the Bible/Religion students at those schools. Digital archives of all those libraries accessible cyberly should be top on school budgetary agendas as well, imho. Research tools like BOINC/World Community Grid could be utilized to teach Christians how to do distributed computing based research for the benefit of humanity. Collaboration of the Campbell-Stone movements resources has been but a drop in the pond thus far -- but if any of those higher ed institutions want to pony up some dough to fund a "futures technologies in evangelism and outreach" I'd certainly be interested in applying.

[James Nored]

John, our church is progressing in this area of multi-media outreach. Here are some steps that we have taken:
- Make good audio and video recording of our sermons, with multiple camera angles and upclose shots.
- Place audio and video of sermons on our website.
- Feed all of this, including blogs and web announcements, through Twitterfeed
- Spread audio and video virally through Facebook, Twitter, and MON

Both audio and video still have their place. They make different kinds of podcasts, which many people can listen to or watch on the way to work. For websites, both are needed, but everything is going to video since Youtube caught on. We use Vimeo for our video, which allows for HD viewing and longer videos.

Steps we still could take in these areas:
- Create some physical media leave behinds
- Encourage members to share all of these media outlets with their non-churched friends, as the artile above suggests
- Add non-sermon audio and video, from minister podcasts of daily living to small group and children's ministry video clips

Your thoughts?

[Ryan Parsons]

A few years ago I created an interactive CD for the congregation I was working for. I created it on Mac's iWeb and burned the HTML to a CD. Basically, it was a self contained web page on a disk. We mailed them out to 4,000 homes in our community. The results were significant increase in website traffic and several visitors. The text and short videos gave info related to our worship, youth, missions, etc. We included a link to a google map of our location and a link to our web page.

A leave behind with the same format might be cool. It could link the user quickly to your other social media sites and blogs. Many times people are willing to insert a disk and click a link than type in a url. You could also embed some short discussions and videos covering relevant topics.

Between CD incompatibilities and the DVD wars, I would recommend linking from a leave behind HTML CD to a iTunes podcast or an online podcast host. With the iPod and ability to link to car audio, audio CD's are slowly phasing out. If they will subscribe via online podcast services, there is a higher probability that they might listen a second time (especially with auto downloads on iTunes).

Has anyone experimented with enhanced podcasts on iTunes?

[John Dobbs]

Loved your idea Ryan.... you are technologically advanced beyond me. I think the podcast thing is true. Ed is right, too, that the commute is the time when people are listening. I am pretty sure that the internet has all but killed print and tv advertising for most.

jd

Ryan Parsons said:

A few years ago I created an interactive CD for the congregation I was working for. I created it on Mac's iWeb and burned the HTML to a CD. Basically, it was a self contained web page on a disk. We mailed them out to 4,000 homes in our community. The results were significant increase in website traffic and several visitors. The text and short videos gave info related to our worship, youth, missions, etc. We included a link to a google map of our location and a link to our web page.

A leave behind with the same format might be cool. It could link the user quickly to your other social media sites and blogs. Many times people are willing to insert a disk and click a link than type in a url. You could also embed some short discussions and videos covering relevant topics.

Between CD incompatibilities and the DVD wars, I would recommend linking from a leave behind HTML CD to a iTunes podcast or an online podcast host. With the iPod and ability to link to car audio, audio CD's are slowly phasing out. If they will subscribe via online podcast services, there is a higher probability that they might listen a second time (especially with auto downloads on iTunes).

Has anyone experimented with enhanced podcasts on iTunes?