God goes digital on new Christian version of YouTube

The Herald Bulletin - God goes digital on new Christian version of YouTube

On any Sunday morning, members of Faith Church in Anderson expect to sing several hymns and listen as Walt Weaver preaches. They also expect to watch some TV without leaving their pews.

Weaver has been sprinkling his services with multiple video clips for more than a year because he said they can add texture to a song or enhance his sermon.

“We incorporate them into just about everything we can,” he said. “It’s hard for people to live in this fast-paced culture and then come to this church and have nothing visual.”

More churches are turning to new technology in the hope that it will engage their congregations and stop the national decline in church attendance.

But Godtube.com, a new Christian video-sharing site, makes it possible for people to bypass the bricks and mortar and experience their faith in a completely digital format.

The site hosts more than 20,000 clips. They range from amateur home videos to professionally produced television segments, and they include sermons, music videos, sketch comedies and infomercials.

Like Youtube.com, Godtube allows anyone to post a video and share it via the Internet. The only difference is videos on Godtube must pertain to Christianity.

Many religious sites have copied nonreligious models. MyChurch.org is similar to the social networking site MySpace, and Conservapedia.com is the religious right’s response to Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia for which anyone can write.

That these religious sites exist at all is the latest example of churches using new technology to convey their message, said Merle Strege, a historian of Christianity and professor at Anderson University’s religious studies department.