Case Study: Streaming with Grace

Grace Cathedral has always played host to a variety of seminars and panels surrounding theological and community affairs. Thanks to the benevolent donation from Sand Hill Road, the tools and infrastructure required to document and disseminate the programming were now within reach.

Just two months after GraceCom launched in the spring of 1995, the team coordinated a live broadcast of the United Nations’ 50th anniversary interfaith service, held at Grace Cathedral. The event was fed live by microwave to a local television station, which donated airtime for the event.

"I knew the day was not here yet where the Internet could be the conduit for the kind of programming we had just created, but I could see it was just around the corner," says Johnson.

Shortly thereafter, the cathedral’s phone and data wiring was completed and GraceCom began live audio webcasts of "The Forum," the cathedral’s weekly panel discussion on timely social and spiritual issues. The inaugural webcast, streamed in RealAudio over a dial-up connection, attracted more than 250 listeners.

"It took me back to my broadcast days," says Johnson. "I realized that what we need to be doing is creating events that become the studio and studio audience, for a larger distribution out to the people who are listening on the Web."

For the typical church organization, Johnson’s concept was a relatively radical shift in direction. "Churches have to do with getting people in the door and in the pews. We’re looking at building community and building common ground with people outside the church and using the Web as that megaphone to get the word out," says Johnson.

Building GraceCom

GraceCom was a one-man show in its infancy and has since grown to a staff of eight full-time and two part-time employees. In addition, a stable of freelance writers and multimedia producers are called upon for specific projects.

"We’ve developed program content and started doing The Forum every Sunday morning, like a one-hour talk show," explains Johnson. "That requires a producer and a researcher to book the guest and write the scripts and develop the content."

Now six years old, GraceCom has all the makings of a full-fledged production studio, diversifying its business strategies across offline and online channels. In addition to The Forum webcasts, GraceCom streams the 11 o’clock Eucharists, the Choral Evensong, and a host of special events.

"The biggest reason to do it, for me, is for people who live too far away, or people who are at home sick with HIV, AIDS, elderly people who can’t come," says Johnson. "That part of outreach in ministry relies entirely upon streaming — to keep us connected with people who, for one reason or another, can’t come, or live in another part of the country."

Offline, GraceCom co-produces content with Trinity Television, the Episcopal Church Center and the Center for Theology and the Natural Sciences. The team has also produced award-winning commercials for the Episcopal Church and is currently in post-production on a documentary about the history of the labyrinth as a meditative tool.Most notably, the build-out of the GraceCathedral.org Web site has given the ministry a significant advantage. The site offers an interactive Flash labyrinth, a QTVR tour of the cathedral, multimedia feature content, a weekly newsletter and an extensive library of on-demand streaming audio.

"There are tremendous reasons to be doing it. But the focus is shifting from the fact that we have a Web site to what we are accomplishing with it," says Johnson.GraceCom’s return on investment, in part, literally comes walking through the door. According to Johnson, half of all newcomers to Grace first learn about the cathedral on the Internet.