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Voices of the Faith are Heard Today in Online Archive

Imagine going online to hear the history of the United Methodist Church as it happened. Some of that is possible now, thanks to a new Historical Audio Digitization Project from United Methodist Communications and the General Commission on Archives and History.

One of the most remarkable pieces in the collection is the actual session in Kansas City in 1939 at which three denominations came together to form the Methodist Church. Listening to that clear and historic audio brings you right back to the moment. The drama of that history is reprieved in the sounds of the 1968 session, when narration and musical presentation detail the history of the Methodist and Evangelical United Brethren churches in England and the United States.

The collection includes more than 300 programs and is growing. Among the selections are interviews, radio programs, speeches, lectures, sermons and radio news reports. Audio programming has come from Drew University and Seminary, Boston University School of Theology, the United Methodist General Commission on Archives and History and United Methodist Communications. Other seminaries and archives will be added to the list of contributors to the program.

The goal of the Historical Audio Digitization Project is two-fold. The first is to preserve the audio of The United Methodist Church. All tapes and other materials are put into digital form in the studios of United Methodist Communications in Nashville. The programs are then saved on gold archive-quality CDs. A copy is kept in Nashville and an identical copy is sent to the Archives and History offices in Madison, N.J. The originals are sent back to the originating institution.

The second goal of the program is to make all audio possible available to students, scholars, church members and the public through two fully-searchable Web sites. This extends the voices of tapes, long silent on the shelves, to current generations of people seeking knowledge. All audio within copyright clearance is available for hearing on these Web sites.

You can hear the audio at http://audio.umc.org, which is part of the UMC.org Web site of The United Methodist Church. Soon the updated United Methodist Archives and History site will also have these materials available for listening.

Some of the other audio to be heard on the Web site includes:

• More than 30 "Night Call" radio programs from 1965-66. This social outreach project of the Methodist Church was the first national call-in program in the United States.
• A 10-part series on American Methodism and a 5-part series on John Wesley's Methodism by Earl Kent Brown for the Methodist bicentennial in 1984.
• Faith story interviews with Walter "Buddy" Williams, former Negro League pitcher; Cal Turner, the CEO of Dollar General; singer Judy Collins; the Montana Logging & Ballet Company; and many others.
• Three Drew faculty members discussing their then-recent participation in the March 1965 civil rights march in Selma, Alabama.
• Sermons delivered at Marsh Chapel at Boston University by Bishop F. Herbert Skeete, Bishop Judith Craig, the Rev. William Willimon, the Rev. Peter Gomes and many others.
• A collection of 1960s lectures by Methodist Theologian Carl Michalson of Drew Seminary

Anyone with historical audio of the church that might become part of the collection is urged to contact the project director, Mike Hickcox, at MHickcox@UMCom.org or 615-742-5110.