Talking Tech @ Redeemer

First, a bit of administrivia:

• Next Sunday is July 5th. Do you want to have class as usual, or take the holiday weekend off? It does not matter to me either way.
• We have not yet covered Lesson #3 in class, so don’t worry if you are feeling behind.

In my last post, I talked a bit about the way cell phone videos of events in Iran were being shared on the internet. In this post, I’ll talk a bit about one major video sharing site, YouTube, focusing on some of the great material related to the Episcopal Church that can be found there.

YouTube, which was purchased by Google in 2006, is a video-sharing site that allows people to upload user-created content so people can view it online. YouTube has a feature that lets you embed videos on outside websites. This is how I’ve put the Common Craft videos on this blog, for example. To put a video in your blog, just copy the embed code that appears at the end of the video and paste it into your blog.

There are many types of videos on YouTube, from funny animal videos to videoblogs to music videos. I’d like to highlight just a few YouTube videos related to the Episcopal Church, as well as some other online video sources being used by the church.

Father Matthew Moretz is an Episcopal priest in Rye, NY, and the creator of Father Matthew Presents. His short videos cover various aspects of the church, including the sacraments. His most recent video, shown below, is about lectio divina, or divine reading:

Another YouTube channel I’ve recently discovered is that of EthanJ. I believe he is a seminarian in Chicago. I find his videos very insightful. He also has a video about lectio divina, which comes at it from a different angle from Father Matthew:

This video shows an example of ministry in action - the Food Pantry at St. Gregory of Nyssa in San Francisco:

And for a little humor, check out the BCP Boys with “Straight out of Compline”:

If your tastes don’t run to rap, perhaps you would prefer “The Prayer Book is a Girl’s Best Friend”?

The Diocese of the Central Gulf Coast also has a YouTube channel, where you can check out the Good Shepherd Steppers:

The I am Episcopalian site collects online videos of people explaining why they have chosen the Episcopal Church. You can also add your voice by uploading your own video.

The Presiding Bishop also uses online videos on her website to communicate.

I encourage you to play around with YouTube to see what is available. You may be surprised at what you find!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 30th, 2009 at 11:48 am and is filed under Community 2.0. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.