Should the church podcast its preaching?

We've sometimes recorded the sermons from our main Sunday service and made them available. At one time this was done on cassette tape, which had the advantage (at the time) of being able to be played in most homes. With the demise of the cassette, this is no longer the case. The other main problem was that duplicating recordings was time-consuming, so generally only one copy was made. It wasn't used very much.

We then tried an experiment in recording in .mp3 format and making it available for download from the internet. This worked for a number of people and seemed to go well but it was always difficult to know how many people actually used the facility. It took a bit of work to get the recording converted and uploaded - about 30 minutes each time.

Someone asked me last week if we were going to resume these recordings and I'd like to know what people think.

Arguments for recording:

• church members are able to catch up on sermons that they missed.
• people can "listen again" to reflect further on what was preached.
• people who are not members of the church community can hear the gospel preached and get a feel for the kind of church that we are.
  
• preachers can learn from the way that their sermon came across.

Arguments against recording:

• time and effort are involved.
  
• the recorded sermon never has the same impact as the live, preached sermon.
• preachers may adjust their message or delivery to address the online audience.

What do you think? Hit the comments link and share your thoughts, please.