VideoTeaching.com, another product developed by the folks over at LifeChurch.tv, has officially launched. Signing up is free (although a bit long and cumbersome), and all of the media is easily downloadable.
A great resource, without a doubt, but it does raise some worthwhile questions to ponder.
The “About” page lists a number of reasons why one might use these videos, which include Expanding Your Teaching Team, Developing Your Ministry, Helping a Ministry during a Transition, or Taking a Break. One could wonder, though, if everyone agrees (will agree) with this philosophy of ministry, i.e. letting a video take the place of someone physical to preach to their flock and congregation.
I speak out of experience, as I was a part of one congregation many years ago where the Senior Pastor “took a break” for the summer and let some material from another well-known Pastor be shown in his stead via video. The congregation was instantly split over this strategy and we never completed the series.
In addition, I think you could probably conjure up the same issues that have been poised at the multi-site churches and video-venues, but I think it’s worth consideration instead of blindly leveraging the videos for your ministry.
One final thought is whether or not this service is going to be sustainable? They are offering some extremely large-sized downloads with apparently no business model to make up for the cost. Yes, bandwidth costs and file hosting is cheap (and getting cheaper).
I appreciate their heart for ministry and service, without question, and not every web-service necessarily needs to make money, but it would be interesting to see what their long term strategy is to make this stay afloat.
All-in-all, I love the idea and I think many ministries will find it valuable and worthwhile. What are your thoughts?