Should Churches Charge for Access To Their Sermon Library?

[00:00:00] Speaker A: This may surprise you, but there actually are some churches out there that are still charging for access to their sermon library. But is that a good idea or a really bad one? We're going to unpack that in this conversation. Let's do this. You're listening to the Reachwrite podcast, the show dedicated to helping your church reach more people and grow. Well. Hey, guys, I'm Thomas. [00:00:26] Speaker B: And I'm Ian. [00:00:27] Speaker A: And today we're talking about a age old question of should churches charge for access to their sermons online? You and I, Ian, have been doing this job helping churches with their online presence and digital marketing for over a decade now. And this is something that I think was asked more in the past. But I still stumble upon churches that are thinking this is a good idea, or itinerant ministers that think that, hey, that's a good way to do it, is to kind of put your sermons behind a paywall and then make people pay some kind of a subscription fee or a one time fee or something to be able to listen to sermons. We'll tip our hat here. I think that we're going to come down on the side of no, it's a bad idea to charge for your sermons to be available online. There probably are a few circumstances we can go over where maybe it could be something you consider, but I guess we wanted to take some time to talk through some of the reasons why we think it's probably not the best idea, especially in this day and age. It may have made more sense in the past, but nowadays it's something that. Yeah, I just think that it's pretty clear that there's all kinds of reasons why you shouldn't be charging. Agreed? [00:01:42] Speaker B: Oh, I totally agree with you. I'm with you on that. And you're right. We used to see this more common in the past, and I am surprised when I run across a church that is monetizing their messages still. And like you said, there might be a couple of instances where it could make sense. But I agree, overall, in this day and age, you hit the nail on the head there, Thomas. Especially since the pandemic, everyone has so much more access to online sermons from thousands of different pastors and preachers. It's a sea of that for people to access out there. [00:02:23] Speaker A: Yeah. The most notable one for me and what always was surprising to me, and it's hard to hold something against this person, but Tim Keller, who passed away just recently, he famously his church Redeemer Presbyterian up until very recently, it looks like now. And some of his sermons, they no longer charge for them, but up until very recently, they were all behind a paywall. And I was someone. I've always appreciated Tim's writings, and whenever I hear him on a podcast, he was always so insightful. And I would on a few occasions wanted to wonder, hey, I'd wonder, hey, what does Tim say about this topic or this tough part of scripture? Only to find out that it'll cost me, I don't remember what it was, $10 a month or something to find out. So it is no longer the case. From what I did, I did some research on it to see if it was still paywalled, but it doesn't seem like it is really anymore. Although you can still buy a lot of their older stuff on usbs. I think that's where it comes from, is that now, I've been a Christian long enough, and I don't know. I know you came to faith in what, the early 2000s, right, Ian? [00:03:29] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:03:30] Speaker A: So I know I've been a Christian long enough, where part of what churches would offer, just because of the hard costs was that if members wanted a sermon, they could get a tape or a CD of past sermons that they missed or something that they wanted to follow up on. And so I'm from the era I was working in churches and things back when they had tape duplicators, where you would take the sermon and right when it ends, you'd run it through the duplicator and you'd have it available for people to take to their family and friends or shut ins or whatever it would be. And I think that's kind of where it comes from, is we kind of got used to this idea that you could pay for that. Now, most churches didn't charge much. It was basically the cost of the tape is what you had to pay for when you would buy that. But, yeah, I think that it was a leftover from that era in a way. And I think there's another exception, too, that I guess I should say this. We're not necessarily talking about things like christian conferences. I understand, like, if you're hosting a conference and you're bringing in speakers and things, I understand in some cases why it makes sense to charge for that. Especially a lot of conferences are for profit businesses. And so, yeah, obviously you have to do what you got to do. I don't like it still. I mean, I know that especially for denominational conferences, it always bums me out when I want to hear where our denomination is going and it's behind a paywall or something. So I don't like it, but that's not the theme of this conversation. [00:04:59] Speaker B: Yeah. Let's think of one more example, though, that I've seen that. I'm not sure. I think it justifies charging for messages, but is like if someone does. I've seen some churches, they have their regular sermon series that they're in, but then they spin off of that to go more in depth into that series, or they kind of do a spin off where it seems more in depth and they feel like that maybe justifies where they can. That's another example I've seen. Not that I'm still for that, but yeah, I've seen that example. Just to mention. [00:05:33] Speaker A: Yeah. So I think I break down the arguments that we have into three parts. I'd say that there's the ethical component. So is it just wrong to do that on an ethics level? I think there's a biblical component. We have a few scriptures we'll share as to why we think that it's probably not what Jesus would be doing. It seems like he never charged anybody to hear his messages. But we'll talk about some scriptures, and then there's just the practical part of it. And I think it will be better for nearly every organization, whether you're a church or something else, that does regular teachings, to make those things available free of charge, just because the world has changed and you'll be better off for it. Let's start with the ethical one, though. Ian, do you have any thoughts on that? On kind of just the ethics of it, or why it might be wrong to charge for sermons? [00:06:24] Speaker B: Guess. You know, when you think of sermons, that is the preaching of God's word. It's scripture. Scripture is going to be within. Of course, there's stories, there's all of that. But it's the job of a church to nurture their people. For a pastor to lead his people in the teachings of God, of the word, I don't know. It just feels like that should just be something built in, in a given and free. To me, those are the things that come to mind. Yeah. [00:06:59] Speaker A: You know what I hate? I just hate the idea that someone would not be able to hear the gospel because they can't afford it. Right. [00:07:07] Speaker B: And it might be a message that they needed to hear at that moment in their life. Right. A topic or something like that that they're dealing with. Yeah. [00:07:13] Speaker A: And frankly, I'd like to say that it's all pretty reasonable, like the prices. But I have seen people that are. This is more kind of in the televangelist space and those things that charge an astronomical amount for some powerful message, or they sell their messages individually. And I hate that. That's just not something that I think is ethical. But, yeah, just the idea that there'd be a paywall that only people that can afford to, or that it's a convenience for them to be able to do it. And here's the reality, is that what used to cost a lot of money is something that really doesn't cost very much anymore. Hosting your sermons online, I mean, we're talking, what, like $10 a month or something, is what it might cost. And you can do it for free on places like YouTube, and there's no real cost now. There are costs with filming and doing the editing and that kind of stuff. So you actually have labor costs and equipment costs that go into it for a church. But in reality, when it comes to actually the delivering of the content, there's just really no cost in it. So I get pretty hung up on that. I just can't get over the ethics of it, especially if someone who didn't have a lot of money, if that would preclude them from hearing our messages, that just breaks my. [00:08:27] Speaker B: Yep. No, I didn't make it to heaven because I couldn't pay for a sermon. [00:08:31] Speaker A: I couldn't afford to. Well, let's talk about scripture, too. So I'll let you kind of share some of that. Ian, we picked out a handful of verses that we think kind of are appropriate to discuss in this conversation on whether or not we should be charging for access to sermons online. So you want to tackle some of those? [00:08:49] Speaker B: Yeah. Always good to steer it to the word of God to make a decision on this. Right. So, yeah, I'll read off some of these here. Matthew ten eight is the first one we found. Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy. Drive out demons freely, you have received freely give. So this kind of speaks to what we've been given to freely give as well. So we've received the word freely give. That as well. Right. [00:09:15] Speaker A: That's Jesus speaking that to his disciples. So an obvious application for us is this principle that if we are given this freely, which we are, we are to freely give. So there's definitely some evidence there. [00:09:27] Speaker B: Yeah. Next one would be two corinthians nine seven. Each of you should give what you've decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver, and this emphasizes the value of voluntarily giving. Of course, one of those resources is like sermons. [00:09:50] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. I think so, too. [00:09:52] Speaker B: Next one, acts 2035. And I'll read these two together. And the last one we have for it, but would be in everything I did, I showed you that by this kind of hard work, we must help the weak. Remembering the words of the Lord Jesus himself, and is more blessed to give than receive. Isn't that appropriate? We're coming upon Christmas time while we're recording this. Right? So that's a popular verse around this time, too. And then lastly, one, Peter. Five, two, three. Be shepherds of God's flock that is under your care, watching over them, not because you must, but because you're willing, as God wants you to be. Not pursuing dishonest gain, but eager to serve. Not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples of the flock. So this talks about pastoral leadership, this verse, and serving willingly without the motive of financial gain. [00:10:46] Speaker A: Yeah, without dishonest gain. And there's no doubt in my mind there are some out there who do it for dishonest gain. They're taking advantage of people. I think that even just because someone is doing this, I don't accuse Tim Keller of having dishonest gain as the motive for why he was charging for his sermons online. So I don't think it's necessarily dishonest gain, but there is that motivation for some people. But, yeah, I just think all of those kind of build a case. I see nothing in the opposite when it comes to scripture. But if you have some ideas on reasons from scripture, why you think we should charge for sermons, then we'd love to hear them. You could drop us a comment down below. That'd be good. There's a biblical case and I think finally there's just the practical reason why. And to say it plainly, I think churches will benefit more from having their sermons freely available on platforms like YouTube and Facebook and all kinds of social media channels for your clips, for things like TikTok and that stuff. Having them available on your website, having just lots and lots of content out there, is one of the best strategies for reaching more people and for growing your church. And it astronomically outweighs the benefit of charging a handful of people 995 a month, agreed for them to have access to your sermons there. First of all, I will say this, that there are a handful of pastors, usually people that have major media personalities and profiles. So your Joel Osteen's of the world, or people, people like that, they'd probably have a few thousand people that would subscribe and that might be some kind of an actual income source, but I think for most pastors, the average size church being 65 people, you might have four people that maybe that would subscribe. So that would mean, I mean, I don't know what you can charge, but it's not worth the work. And just setting up the software behind it and trying to set up tools to be able to have memberships and process people and process credit cards with it, it's just such a nightmare. It doesn't make practical sense, I think, unless you are an enormous church, and even then, I think the cost would not even come close to the benefit of expanding your reach and having more people hear about what you're doing there. So that's what I think of with the practical reasons. Do you have anything to add to that, Ian? [00:13:15] Speaker B: Yeah, other than that, how many times have we heard over the years that someone decided to come to a church and get plugged into that church or make a decision to receive Christ because they were online watching or listening to sermons for weeks? I mean, I've been hearing this for years now. So think about. So again, when you mentioned the benefits of not charging way outweigh, I think charging, that's one big one that comes to mind for me. [00:13:42] Speaker A: Yeah, we're doing a post and a podcast that we're kind of studying for you and I right now. And one of the numbers that every year we do a blog post that's about the most important church statistics of the year. And one of them that I saw this year, as we were kind of preparing for this, was that over 30% of people have listened to a pastor's sermon before they visit that church for the first time. So it used to be kind of an anomaly. I remember people would say, oh, my gosh, I can't believe someone listened before they came. But now it's kind of commonplace. People want to see what they're going to be getting into and that might even be underreported. That's people that actually, I think, sit through a whole sermon and watch a service, not just kind of catching a fragment to see what the service is like there. Yeah, I just think that it's a no brainer, the opportunity for growth. And there's a reason why we do this. Why do we here at reachwright do this podcast? Well, it's in order to help more churches. That's a function of it. But in part, it's to kind of help people see you and I and our brand and reachwright see us out there more as people that are known for helping churches. So that's what we do. And so your church has that exact same opportunity with your sermons is that if people are consistently seeing you as a pastor, your church branding your face, and they see it on their social media feeds and they catch you on YouTube and they're running into you there, it just builds that familiarity and you'll become known as a person who has spiritual answers and a person to turn to when someone's looking for an experience in their faith there. So that's the benefit. That's why we think it matters. Anything to add as we wrap up? [00:15:26] Speaker B: No, I think that's. Well, again, it might be a surprising thing that we're still talking about this. Like we said, it's very rare, but no, I'm on the same page, Thomas. And maybe someone who had this question out there, we hope this was helpful, maybe steered them towards not charging for their messages, would be hope we talked. [00:15:47] Speaker A: You out of it. But if we did, that's right. Or if you're still charging for messages, maybe you have a reason. I'd love to hear a compelling reason as to why some churches do this. I'd love for you to drop us a comment, let us know. We'd love to have some healthy dialogue around those things. If that could possibly exist on the Internet, that'd be great. But even if that's not the case, if you agree with us, drop us a like, leave us another comment, hit that subscribe button. Thanks for being a part of the Reach right family and we'll see you next time. [00:16:15] Speaker B: See? Ah.