The Coming Death or Rebirth of Church Publishing
Every church I’ve ever attended has had to spend time, energy, and money contending with copyright infringement. Every duplicated hymn in the bulletin, every extra copy of music for the musicians, etc. is potentially a source of copyright violations. Many churches work hard to prevent this kind of problem with organizations like CCLI (Christian Copyright Licensing International) and with licensing agreements through church publishing houses, but I’ve yet to find a church which fully complies with copyright law.
On one hand, paying for worship resources guarantees that the church can continue to develop high quality products in the future. On the other hand, licensing can be expensive, especially for small churches. Also, copyright enforcement actions effectively pit Christian against Christian and bring new meaning to “robbing Peter to pay Paul.” Sliding-scale payment schemes go a long way towards making resources accessible to small churches, but they are imperfect at best. What can be done?
Don Parris at Blue-Gnu recently began developing a hymnal for his small church which will feature music which is free as in free speech or the “freedom” in “freedom software.” Most of the hymns will be derived from The Cyber Hymnal, which is a huge collection of public domain hymns.
In some senses this begins to help solve the problem of free access to worship resources for smaller congregations, though by not including musical scores and liturgy resources this kind of hymnal would not offer enough for a typical Lutheran church. With the growing popularity of electronic distribution and video projection in church sanctuaries, physical copies of worship resources are becoming less important. Few would dispute, I think, that church publishing houses (and big name publishers in general) are becoming less significant as the Internet grows. If electronic distribution of worship resources becomes the norm, the Freedom mindset of the Internet will have done to church publishers what it has already done to newspapers: crippled their power and forced them to adapt to a situation where widespread usage without compensation is the norm.
Electronic distribution, technology in worship, and other forces are already redefining church publishers’ landscape in the same way that blogging did for newspapers. Just as newspapers ignored, then ridiculed, and then desperately embraced blogging as the Internet culture redefined news distribution, publishers are also beginning to face the same kind of changes with projects like Parris’ freedom hymnal. I hope they will learn from the mistakes and delays of the newspapers and embrace free (and freedom) distribution before they are smashed by new technology.
Church Demographics and Use of Technology
I’ve been pondering the impact that a good church website can have upon church attendance, growth, and demographics. In fact, I had a lovely conversation with Susan Ebertz here at Wartburg this morning about this very topic, as one of her teaching interests is technology in ministry. A few thoughts from that conversation:
Keep reading…
Done with CPE!
I just got home Saturday from St. Louis, where for the last eleven weeks I have been taking a summer unit of Clinical Pastoral Education at St. Luke’s Hospital in Chesterfield, MO. I’m really happy to be back home with Jennifer! CPE was an excellent experience, and I recommend St. Luke’s to anyone who is looking for a CPE site in that area. I just uploaded some pictures from CPE. There are a few shots around the lunch table, the official group photos, a lot of pictures of the Cardinals game we attended, and a photoshopped picture of our supervisors (Mari Chollet and Chuck Orme-Rogers) as powerful Jedi.
Edit: Moved pictures to my own domain.
The Christian Ethos of Freedom Software
“For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” – Matthew 18.20
The essence of the Christian life is community. This promise of Christ places God’s presence in the other, so that while God is present within each one of us, God’s presence is most available to us in our relationships with other Christians. If we take that seriously, there is a great deal to be learned about how we are to interact with our neighbor. If people have needs, they should be taken care of as bearers of God’s image. The fundamental orientation of the Christian life, lived in relationship, is upward to God and outward to people.
Starting Point for Freedom Software in the Church
As I write more about Freedom Software in the Church, I have just begun to collect my articles in a central location where they are easier to find. Find out more about Freedom Software and the importance of using it in the church.
Pivirotto Wedding Pictures Available
I’ve finally gotten around to posting Chris and Marie Pivirotto’s wedding pictures. They were taken with my n800, so they are pretty grainy, but there’s still a couple of good ones there. Enjoy!
Edit: Moved pictures to my own domain.


