Back in early 2005 the idea was impressed on me that it would be good to have audio messages from our church on the Internet. I was a fledgling WYSIWYG website builder and didn't really know anything about doing such a thing. I had high hopes but no knowledge. Still, I felt compelled to give it a try, and so with a modicum of confidence and an overwhelming sense that this was something God put on my heart, the journey began.

The early efforts were, to put it kindly, under-whelming. To start with, the services were recorded on cheap bulk cassette tapes so we started with a less than ideal source material. In order to get the audio on the Internet the first thing I had to learn was how to get them from an analogue format (the tapes) to digital (for computers) — no mean feat for a novice I was to discover.

It did mean, however, that I was pretty much "forced" to listen to each message (after I found where it was on the tape) since it was recorded in real time to my computer. These days I have to make time to listen since whenever I'm in front of the computer I seem to be working.

I find using the "speed-up" technique allows me to spend less time listening while actually retaining more.

To spare you all the boring details, let me just say that I used the tape player from an old karaoke machine plugged into the audio-in jack on the back of my computer. I experimented with some software and settled on a free version of Wavepad, which by the way I am still using. Works great for our purposes. There are other good free programs, such as Audacity, which I sometimes use, but most of what you hear was done with Wavepad.

From start to finish it would take me 3-4 hours (often longer) to record, clean-up and upload the 30 -35 minute files to my web-host's server. Not only that, but it was often late the next week until I was able to get the tapes. At the same time, I was trying to catch up from the first of the year and on a pretty steep learning curve. It was a challenge. But God is good and I was learning stuff I wasn't sure my old brain could handle

The Apostle Paul told us we are to use "all possible means" to spread the Gospel. Our prayer is that this ministry will reach lost people who may come to know Jesus as their Lord and Savior. Maybe something here will help draw them to Jesus. Maybe some will visit our church. We won't know the impact this is having on lives until we get to Heaven. We pray we are touching people. We have gotten some feedback that indicates that unsaved friends and relatives are listening.

And our members are benefitting as well. We continue to reach out to our members who are homebound or miss a service or just want to hear it again.

You can help by holding this ministry up in prayer and spreading the word. If you have a website, please feel free to link to our home page. If it's appropriate, I will be happy to reciprocate with a link back to yours.

Thank you for the opportunity to serve in this small way.