It is a great idea to record your sermons and podcast them from your website. It will give pre-visitors a chance to get a feel for the church and make an early connection with you.

What’s the Problem?

Recording the sermons is one thing, but recording and “publishing” your worship set is almost certainly a copyright violation. Our brothers & sisters who wrote that music deserve to be able to put bread on their table.

What to Do

Knowing that many churches are doing this and wanting to do this, our friends at Christian Copyright Solutions have created a license called WORSHIPcast. It allows you to legally stream your recorded worship, which is another great way to let pre-visitors get a feel for your church. Here is their pitch:

“Church exemptions do not cover the webcasting of copyrighted music, but this need not be a barrier to you making your worship services available over the internet. The WORSHIPcast license makes it simple to ensure that your webcasted performances of copyrighted music are legal and ethical.”

Just be aware that recordings from your services, whether directly through the sound board or recorded live, will likely be an amateur and very raw presentation. Be sure that the recording is webcast-worthy before putting it out there. Sometimes the recording doesn’t do your band justice, which doesn’t help your first impression.