Firm Foundation Technology, LLC Sermon Audio Conversion and Posting Services

Have you ever considered posting your sermons to your church's web site?

If you don't have any sermons posted I'd be willing to guess that there is possibly one of four reasons why you are not posting messages today:

• You never considered it up until now.
• You don't know how you would start.
• Your web site is only allowed a very little amount of disk space.
• You don't even record your services to tape or CD.

I can't help you with the last reason but I can help with the first three reasons. Please allow me back up a bit. During my off hours I am responsible for the web site at my church and we just started posting sermons online. I've been hoping to do this for a year now but sometimes it just takes time to move the wheels of change. But now we are and do you know what, editing the file and adding introductory and closing voiceovers was lots of fun.

On the down side it did take a while, so I began to see if there was any companies out there who could do the conversion, editing and posting for me, even for a reasonable fee. I looked and looked and found some that will do conversion, some that will do posting and some that will do editing. But no one I found will do all three. Actually I did find one reference to a company that does not seem to exist any more. Well since I am having fun while doing this for my church, I thought why not offer it as a service to any Christian church through my business.

What Will I Do For You?

Now down the nitty-gritty, what am I offering to do for your church. The easiest way to tell you is to list what the process will be:

• You send me a tape or CD of your service. (CD is better.)
• I'll take the sermon portion of your service and convert to a digital format.
• I will add a customized voiceover introduction and a closing voiceover.
• Then I will convert that audio to MP3 or Windows Media format. Your choice!
• I'll post the file on my server and send you the link to the file.
• Then you just link to it from your web site and instant sermons online.

I'll do all the items above for only $59 per posted message (up to 45 minutes). Just so you are clear, that's a one-time cost to you for each message. As long as you are posting at least one message a month with me, your previously posted messages will still be hosted for free. And, if you decide to stop posting sermons, I'll still host them for up to a year, depending on how often you posted messages in the past. By the way, the server I will post them on has gobs of free space and a huge amount of download bandwidth.

If you really want the full technical information, contact me and I'll be happy to bore you with the details. I will tell you that your church will be sharing the server space with other churches (up to 30 churches per server). By grouping you together with other churches you can gain the use of an immense download capacity for a very small price. But suffice it to say there is enough room for each church to hold about 10 years worth of weekly sermons and the server will support about 50,000 sermons downloaded per month. Can you imagine your ISP allowing you to have thousands of 5-7 Megabyte downloads per week and not charging you an arm and a leg?

To simplify the billing I will bill you for 10 messages at a time ($590) ahead of time and send you some preaddressed mailers for your CD's or tapes. Then send in the messages and I'll take care of the rest. There is a one-time setup fee of $99 that will be added to your first bill to cover the costs of preparing the voiceover scripts and some other startup costs. There is also a small discount available and some bonus features if you want to pay ahead of time for 26 or even 52 messages per year. If at any time you are not satisfied with the service and I can't make you happy, you can stop and I will refund your money for any messages not yet posted.

Are You Still Not Sure?

If you are still not sure that this will work for your church, let me offer to do a sample sermon at half price. Just contact me by calling 301-481-5133 or use the FFT SermonOnline order page (be sure to select Sample Sermon) to let me know you will be sending me one sermon on tape or CD with a check for $29 dollars and I will convert it, add a very basic voice over (not the fully customized version you will get if you begin using my services regularly) and post it for two months for you to review and try out. I think you will find this will become a valued addition to your churches online presence.

How Do I Sign Up?

Simple. Just follow these two steps:

1. Read my Statement of Faith. I only want to partner with churches that are true Bible believing churches. Please do not sign up to use this service if you feel you cannot fully agree with my Statement of Faith. I also want you to know that you are dealing with someone who is also trying his best, in his own strength and in the strength of the Lord, to live out his faith.
2. Fill in the FFT SermonOnline order page and I'll send you your invoice. (If you prefer here is the FFT SermonOnline order form in Adobe Acrobat Format for printing) I'll contact you to verify your details and to ask you a few questions about your church to help me prepare your voiceover scripts. After your invoice is processed I'll send out your first set of mailers and then you can start sending me your sermons.

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions about this service. I stand ready to work with you and your church to more fully spread the Word of God to the entire world.

Yours in Christ,

Stanley Toney
Owner, Firm Foundation Technology, LLC

Why Should I Post Sermons Online?

One question you may be asking is why should I even post messages online at all? There are many possible answers to this question but I will only touch on three for right now.

The first reason you may want to consider posting sermons online is to help attract the unchurched to your services. To a seeker who is considering going to church for the first time (or first time in a long time) they may be very intimidated by the prospect of even walking in your front door. They most likely have asked, at least to himself or herself, "What is the preacher like?" If they have taken the time to really check out your web site there is a good chance that they are more than a bit interested. And if they can hear some of your sermons then one more fear of coming to worship with you has been conquered. Each closing voiceover also includes an invitation to come to your church the next Sunday with your churches contact information to motivate the seeker to come in person.

The second reason you should consider posting online is for your church members and friends who may want to review a past sermon. They may have their sermon notes but want to hear again specifically what the pastor said about a certain point. By going to your web site and downloading the sermon they can listen again and again as much as they want to. Plus your church office staff does not have to spend time hunting up the right master tape or CD and then making another copy and mailing it out.

Online sermons are also useful for folks who may be on extended travel or are stuck at home but still have access to their computer. When my wife was in bed a couple of years ago with one broken ankle and the other one all twisted up we got the tapes of the sermons. But I don't think she listened to more than two or three in the three or four months she was bedridden. But if the sermons had been online at the time, she would likely have listed to every single one because she was on her computer every day all day since that was one of the few things she could do.