starting out on youtube

Hi! You likely got the memo last night that Mors is going away soon. Mors is expensive and ineffective, and I think it's time I laid it to rest. However, I still want to put helpful content out there that will do some good, so I'm switching to YouTube.

The vision I have for this YouTube channel is to bring the interesting theological conversations that are happening in my circles into a broader context. I’ve been trying to do something similar to this with Mors, but, as I've already mentioned, that format is largely outdated and not worth all the money it costs to keep the website up. It’s also pretty time-consuming to sit down frequently to write blog posts.

Seeing the impact that YouTubers like Paul Vander Klay and Malcolm Guite have within their small online communities also piqued my interest. In Paul’s case, here’s a guy who appears to have some pretty serious ADHD sitting down in front of the camera and just hitting record and talking about interesting stuff! No cuts, no over-edited sound design or graphics, no pretensions to YouTube glory. The result? Paul's videos are really interesting and worthwhile.

Now, if point-and-shoot content meant to start conversations was presented in a style more akin to the video essays of Mark Ward and Simon Roper (two men whose channels, while vastly different in subject matter, present themselves in a similar fashion), that might fill an interesting niche. Couple that with my theological particularities and connection to the world of the Communion of Reformed and Evangelical Churches (CREC), and we might have something. There are a lot of interesting things, especially on the alternative side of the Reformed and Presbyterian world, that should discussed, and I aim to talk about them.

I’m opting for a fairly simple video style, with a bit of intro talking, two title cards consisting of footage of the location where I'm shooting, text overlays, and no edits beyond that. Just point and shoot. Clean, minimalistic, and classy presentation that doesn’t distract from the content. I hope that if you've been following Mors this is a satisfactory new direction. Keep an eye peeled, I aim to post about twice a month. I'll start with subjects that I was intending to blog about originally and move on from there.

God bless you all,

Caedmon