The well-known US Christian video resource site Sermon Spice serves at least two major purposes for Anglicans here in the Anglican Church Southern Queensland.

In the first place the site is an absolute treasure trove of video material for everything from adding a welcome, to stories that enhance homilies, to blessings with heart. Videos need to be purchased but the cost is relatively minimal. In a world where visual literacy is king, video material is edging towards being essential for a worship experience that goes deeper than surface level.

Beyond the resource angle there is the second purpose, one probably not intended by the site's creators. This is the site's function as a means for a parish to determine who they are: their identity. Trawling through the site and previewing the videos, one will almost certainly have many "that wouldn't suit my place" moments. Such moments are useful in a positive sense because they enable us to identify the traits of our own local identity. They may even lead us to evaluate those traits, if necessary.

So...win-win!