When I was in college, I went to a local church with fantastic teaching. At the back of the sanctuary, there was a audio cassette rack where you could pick up a copy of a previous sermon for a one-dollar donation. I loved this cassette rack. I loved that if I had to miss a week of church I could grab the cassette from the rack and play it in my car on the way home. I loved that if there was a sermon that I thought a friend or family member would especially enjoy that I could grab a copy of it and hand it to them.

The days of the audio cassette are over (in most places, I'm assuming.) Most churches made the jump to CDs several years ago and then to the internet. With the technologies available today, sharing a sermon with those you love is easier than ever.

If your church is not already recording and sharing your sermons through your church website, here are four quick reasons that you should start right away:

1. It's a helpful way to archive sermons - I'm going to teach a 3 week series on Luke 15 this coming summer as our pastor will be on Sabbatical. I know that our church did a series on Luke several years ago and instead of simply wondering what the focus on the series was, I can simply listen to it. Brilliant.
    
2. It's an easy way to make a sermon available to a church member who had to miss the worship service for some reason - My wife and I have three kids under the age of 5.

We've had lots of people asking about easy ways to add video and audio podcasts to their church websites.  We've had the Advanced podcasting feature for several months but we're now ready to announce that things just got a whole lot better.

The New Flow Podcast Feature is here.   Sign up for a 100% risk free 30-Day trial to test it out yourself.

There are all sorts of features that you are going to love.

Check out the video tour that will show the player in action.

Here are a few of our favorite features:

1. Easy Video Integration - If you are video recording your sermons, you can host the files on services like vimeo.com or blip.tv for free.  Now with a simple click of a button you can have your video popup right from your website so that people can watch and share.
    
2. Social Integration - Imagine that I came to your church on Sunday and heard a message that I loved.  I loved it so much that I wanted to share it with a friend (or all of my friends.)  Now, I can go right to your website and click on the email or tweet button for the sermon and just like that, I have shared the blessings with others.
    
3. Sermon Archive - Do you want to keep several years (or more) worth of sermons available on your site? With the new Flow Podcast Feature...

We just talked with Eric from Mountain View Bible Church.  He's new to SnapShot Web - he's had a SnapShot Website for a church for only a few months and it's not totally finished yet.  Even though he's still working on finishing up the site, we had to show you the podcast that he's got up and running.  It's amazing.  Click here to see it for yourself.  Here are some of the ways that he has made it especially cool:

• For each message, he has added a series name, a sermon name, an image, and some notes
• A clear and simple description for his users on how to interact with the podcast
• Two archive options so that you can find a sermon by series or by date
• A simple way for you to search all the sermons if you know you are looking for something in particular
• An RSS feed set up at feedburner so that people can subscribe to the podcast through iTunes or another podcatcher
• Tweet option enabled so you can share a sermon over twitter if you'd like (you can see this by clicking on one of the sermon titles.)
• Email this sermon to a friend set up

Wow.  We're impressed with how well he's using the new Podcasting feature.  Well done, Eric.  Keep up the good work.

If you are interested in getting your Podcast set up like Eric's just let us know at support@snapshotweb.com or 877-549-1900 and we'll have you up and running in no time.