Adding audio sermons advice needed

[Peggie]

Thanks for reading my post! I am new here and just starting to work on my church's web site. I have been out of website work for over a year and now trying to get back into it here in Texas. (Recently married and moved to Texas from Maine!)

I need help though. They would like to have the sermons online. NOT at the time they are being preached, but added to the site so people can click on them and hear them. They are interested in both hearing online and downloading as a separate option. (At this point they do not know if they want them to download off the site or just listen on the site.) What is the best way to accomplish this? They do not know a whole lot, but mentioned streaming audio to me and when I researched some out online I was not sure if that was what they really need, different sites explained it all differently and I was a bit confused on equipment, software, host requirements etc on it.

Can anyone help me and tell me what is best and how to do it?

Thanks!
Peggie

[carrot]

Hi Peggie,

Firstly, two links.
The first, Streaming Media Tutorial (http://simon.job.id.au/articles/3/streaming-media-tutorial) was written by me, and explains (hopefully simply) how to take an digital audio file and stream it from your web-site. You can see the results of the tutorial on the Emu Music web-site (http://emu.mu/albums/wearehispeople.php).
The second, the CPC Website Ministry FAQ (http://www.centralpc.org/admin/webminfaq.htm#create_audio), provides more general details on sermon audio files.

Personally, on the next iteration of our church web-site we will put two formats: MP3 and Windows Media for both download (i.e. link direct to file) and streaming (via a metafile, explained in the first article).

Beyond that, are they expecting you to record the sermons or just put them online?

Hopefully that gets your started and may illicit further questions.

Simon.

[David Gillaspey]

Hi Peggie,

Thanks for posting.

You may have already found this thread on the forum,

http://www.greatchurchwebsites.org/forums/showthread.php?t=102

which, along with the links that carrot provided, I think will be of help to you.

It might be helpful to other forum members if you could provide more detail about your church ? is it big or small? what kind of audio equipment does the church already have? Is the church already recording sermons to tape or CD? Is the pastor using a wireless mic (probably so, but it affects the answer)? Do you work on a Macintosh or PC? Etc.

Sincerely,

David Gillaspey
President
Great Church Websites
(and forum administrator)