Church 2.0 | Main / RecordedWorship

Recorded worship

Video recordings and video podcasts

Recordings of worship services of the General Assembly of the Unitarian Universalist Association can be found here: http://www.uua.org/ga/ga05/streaming.html Video quality is professional level (two to three cameras, paid camera operators, professionally edited), and these video recordings are worth watching to see how good video recordings of worship services can be. However, no comments are allowed, so this is not interactive and not fully Church 2.0 compliant.

First Unitarian Church of Albuquerque

First Unitarian of Albuquerque offers recordings of sermons in audio format, and in two video formats (WMV and MP4). Not all worship services are offered as videos at this time. Comments are allowed, making this a truly Church 2.0 site. http://www.geocities.com/scarcrest/uu_podcasts.html(approve sites)

Even better, First Unitarian of Albuquerque is moving towards what they're calling "iMinistry," which they describe as follows: "We are experimenting with our on-site Video Café before going out to the small towns of New Mexico to offer a way for our scattered UUs to worship together." See http://www.geocities.com/scarcrest/uu_podcasts.html(approve sites) for more info.

Audio recordings and audio podcasts

See the Unitarian Universalist Podcast Directory for a comprehensive listing of podcasts: http://www.geocities.com/scarcrest/uu_podcasts.html(approve sites)

Church of the Larger Fellowship

Church of the Larger Fellowship (CLF) serves isolated religious liberals around the world, including expatriates in the foreign service, those in military service, incarcerated persons, those who are geographically distant from a liberal congregation (or any congregation). Originally a posatl mail-based church, CLF is increasingly moving online. They have a good description of "podcasting" on there Web site: http://www.uua.org/clf/podcasts/index.html

CLF places their monthly print newsletter online, and provides much of the newsletter content in audio form as well, including sermons, message from the CLF minister, material for families with children, etc. The sermons are usually written by ministers from other congregations, and the audio recordings of the sermons and readings are usually read by CLF staff. Their newsletter home page is here: http://www.uua.org/clf/quest/2007/01/index.html

CLF does not allow users to comment or otherwise interact online, but they do receive email and postal mail from their members, which they sometimes publish in their newsletter.

First Parish in Concord

This large congregation has an easily-navigated Web site, allowing once-click access to podcasts from their front page. If users prefer not to subscribe to the feed, sermons are listed in chronological order with a good search feature at the top of the page (which is unfortunately labeled "filter" rather than "search"). However, comments or other feedback by users is not allowed, so this still isn't true Church 2.0. http://www.firstparish.org/cms/content/category/9/40/104/

Dublin (Ireland) Unitarian Church

The Dublin Unitarian Church allows you to subscribe to audio recordings of the weekly children's story, the weekly sermon, and/or to what they call "Moments of Reflection," a shorter, more meditative audio recording. This flexibility is admirable, allowing users to customize the syndication feeds they receive. However, comments or other feedback by users is not allowed, so this still isn't true Church 2.0. http://www.unitarianchurchdublin.org/podcasts.htm