Visiting some YouTube postings from Preludium and elsewhere

Out of the blue, or better out of the cloud, someone reached in and looked at this old YouTube video if mine titled, "I'm a Young Episcopalian"

This video has been seen by 3,068 folk so far.  The last comment came from someone who didn't like it at all. Here's the comment: "I'm a Catholic because I want to go to Heaven, not because of personal preference of social matters. And Because Jesus Christ himself established the Church in which I am a member of! Maybe you should re-think your denomination and compare it to the Bible you may be surprised to see how off the wall the Episcopal Church really is!"

I had put this together because of a relatively short lived project from the Church Center to collect short comments from Episcopalians about why they are Episcopalians.  I submitted this to the project, but it never got into the mix there. That is just as well, for I think it has gotten greater viewing outside the Church Center project.  But I was a little taken back by the comment.

Another video I posted, "The Episcopal Church: A Question." has been viewed 14,888 times now.Here it is:

This one gets enough viewing to be further up the food chain when "Episcopal Church" is Googled. Again there have been a variety of comments, some clearly from Roman Catholics, suggesting that we are nice but off base. Both of these are little experimental pieces. My mentor / model for media stuff, Jim Friedrich, would blanch at the roughness of these. But the point is they are out there and get viewed, not a lot but a good bit. Here is a really well done piece by TECtube (The Church Center Communications folk). It is "A look at the mission and ministry of The Episcopal Church." It is very good indeed. Have a look:

According to YouTube it has been viewed to date 1683 times. Several questions: The TECtube "Ministry and Mission" piece is really fine. It should be on the website of parishes, shown at diocesan events, etc., as part of the witness to the work of The Episcopal Church. It's good lots of imagery that builds on the common experiences we have in church - communion, the peace, singing, bringing who we are to the table, etc. By comparison my two pieces, nice as I think they are, are both less interesting and less important. The piece on "I'm an Episcopalian" has gotten as much viewing exposure as the "Mission and Ministry" piece. Why is that? 

Well, perhaps part of it is that YouTube lists the TECtube videos as a bundle... You have to go into that list to find specific videos (or at least that's what happens when I google "Episcopal" or "Episcopalian." The Cathedral in Harrisburg, PA has a number of "Why I am an Episcopalian" videos, all of which get listed near the top of the list. And of course there is the famous, "The Episcopal Church - Who we are?"which is climbing up the charts as we speak. And then there is the PB's answer to the question, "Why should I be an Episcopalian" which has been viewed 25,000 times and was captured and posted by Jim DeLa, past president of Episcopal Communicators. It's a perfect use of short clips of real events to tell our story.

All of which is to say I think we bloggers in Episcopal / Anglican land need to do more videos, even rough and ready ones, with the goal to witness to who we are and what we are about as Episcopalians.  If we need any urging, all we have to do is look to Fr. Matthew's teaching videos and to Episcopal Cafe's "Video" section, where you will find the following from the Diocese of Texas:

   

Let's do more of this. This video provokes discussion, thoughtful discussion. It is just edgy enough to make us want to engage the question of evangelism all the more.