Internet Sermons, Homilies and Lectures

Dear Ones,

It would be very helpful to get your input on the current internet project of our mission. There are questions throughout this email, I hope you will take the time to help us and give us direction.

A little history: a few members asked if we could send them articles or audio tapes of our talks and sermons since they moved to remote areas. This coincided with Kochamma taking me aside and asking me to stop just reading my sermons from pages (as I would write them - or at least make notes). She said, "You are much better talking to us than reading to us." So, you can blame her for the audio recordings. All of the sermons are live and extemporaneous. The talks were given with limited notes. An added benefit of the recordings, is that I can hear the human errors and problems in my speaking. There have also been technological glitches while learning. Most of these have been corrected over time, I hope. However, these recordings were not edited.

Have you been able to listen to the uploaded audio of sermons at our mission? If so, what do you think? What are your favorites? Is it a project worth continuing? Is there anything we might be able to improve?

One quality of using a blog for this project is that a blog allows anyone who visits to add comments directly to a specific posting. Another is that a specific posting can be emailed with comments. Look for the comments link and the envelope icon under each posting.

The next task is to convert audio tape to digital files to upload. These include 4th Monday lectures as well as sermons from several years. What do you think?

Additionally, there has been a request for printed transcripts of the audio. Since they are extemporaneous, there are not even notes to begin to write them. If anyone has the ability (and feels called to assist in ministry) to transcribe the audio, I would be appreciative and would welcome the opportunity to do some editing... ;-) +

If there is any good in these, please praise God who opened my lips. If there is any fault, please forgive me and may the Lord have mercy.

Please pray for us and Orthodox Christian missions everywhere.

your servant,

Fr John Brian
Holy Transfiguration Orthodox Mission
Madison, Wisconsin
608.236.9622
http://maruroopa.blogspot.com/
www.angelfire.com/wi/inroads/transfig.html