Sermons belong in church, not our earbuds.
Up until what seems like just yesterday, Christians had to show up in church to hear the sermon on Sunday morning.
It happened in real time, once a week. If you missed it, you might get the highlights from someone else, but if not, you had to wait until next time. Part of the motivation to get out the door each Sunday was getting to participate in a completely unrepeatable moment in time.
This is why churches need to rethink the recent trend in making sermons available online. Churches, like any other institution, cannot simply adopt the latest communication technology with impunity. There are profound consequences for doing simply what is possible and popular in our culture without considering what is prudent. But for the church, unique among all institutions, this is a particularly serious problem.
Of course, churches’ motivations are sincere: They want to provide preaching for the shut-in, the elderly, the infirm, and those incapable of traveling. They also want to spare you the solitary hell of a daily commute that amounts to hours stuck in traffic eachweek. (For the few who sincerely can’t make it on Sunday, pastors should also be visiting them in person, bringing the Eucharist, and perhaps dropping off a text of the sermon or a USB drive of the sermon.)
In some cases, churches could stream a message live for the appointed time of the sermon itself, but the effect on the user should be, like the kids say these days about their favorite concerts: ”You had to be there.”
Sermon podcasting reveals a utilitarian misunderstanding of how our messages create a sense of meaning. The sermon is not an interchangeable part that can be removed from the context of worship while still maintaining its power, its ...
from
http://feeds.christianitytoday.com/~r/christianitytoday/ctmag/~3/zz5lAfEhUhI/podcasting-hurts-preaching-sermon-podcasts-pastors.html
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