I'm not sure you want to open the Godtube can of worms here. You'll find there are more than a few people in this community who are not fans of Godtube.

I might as well try to explain why the people aren't fans. What is Godtube? It's a Christian subculture clone of YouTube. Now, is that a good thing? Is that something that should be held up?

The mission of the church is to go and make disciples baptizing and teaching them (Matthew 28:19-20) and, as I recently herd a pastor say, the mission is everything. In context he was said that grace changes lives and the mission is everything (for the work we have to do).

So, how does a site that movs Christian content out of the view of the world accomplish the mission? How does that site accomplish or help aid in the mission? More than a few people here don't have an answer for that so they are not fans of Godtube.

The is, also, a feeling that Godtube helps Christians live in a Christian bubble. The job of the church is to go out into the world while not being of it. Godtube seems to help Christians stay out of the world where it feels comfortable and safe.

Now, I don't mean to criticize or bash anything here. I just want to offer up why Godtube isn't in the links, why there are a number of people who are against it, and some food for thought.

I agree with you in principle Matt with regards to being a light, but one thing to keep in mind is nature of content vs the medium. I tend to avoid Youtube these days. Mainly because of the adult nature of some of the content. Recently, my 6 year old daughter was watching an embedded Youtube video on a kid's site. She clisked on the link that took her to Youtube where every other video on the sidebar was adult in nature. Fortunately, I was right there.

While we should avoid the Christian subculture/clic mentality, I don't think that there is anything wrong with have sites that you know you can trust the material. Being a light in a Dark world is one thing, needless temptation.

But my point is this, I think there is room for both.

Matt's point about building for your real use case is important, I think. If what you're looking for is a 'family friendly' video sharing service with a subset of youtube's content and some of its own original stuff, I think there's probably a legitimate case to be made. Youtube *is* pretty overrun with linkbait pr0n these days, and I think a lot of people would be interested in a service that gives them Youtube's features (and breadth of content) without having to set up an account, tweak 'adult content' filters, and so on.

But that service isn't "godtube" -- Godtube is explicitly, specifically all about building a Youtube clone for Christians. Would muslims interested in sharing videos without dodging sexual content be welcome to upload religious content? Would a Christian posting sex advice videos for married couples be allowed to upload their content?

The impulse to build a 'branded' version of anything successful and label it For Christ is strong. It's complicated because there's almost always a use case that correlates with the results, but like Matt I'm troubled by the form that it takes.

I'm not going to get into this to much because it is a can of worms but I think we are being a little forward with our uses of Gods name. The title Geeks and God is good in my mind because it uses God's name as a distinction to show what the site is about. Godtube on the other hand feels like we took a "worldly" thing and slapped God's name onto it just because.

Ok enough soapbox before I get out of hand....

I agree with Jeff that the creators of Godtube should have created FamilyTube. Or some other name. FamilyTube is taken not sure by who because I get an error on the site. But anyway, The point being we should be looking more to using our standards to attract others instead of repelling them. Yes a majority of people will be Christians but a lot of non-Christians like to have safe places for their kids to surf or want to protect themselves.

I never really thought about it much but in the last few months (because of this site) My eyes have been opened to the need for Christians to represent themselves on the internet better. People should be able to tell I am a Christian when I talk to them in person. They should also be able to tell I am a Christian on the internet. The internet is a mission field as well. Its really a geek's mission field.

I agree with Matt - to segregate ourselves into a bubble doesn't do anything for the world and is not what we are commanded to do. Too often we want to put our lights in a bushel basket and be happy seeing each other's lights shine... with no change to the darkness around us.

If we want to protect our kids and ourselves from garbage there are ways to do it. Net Nanny, DNS blocking, parental supervision as with freegrace, etc. We should keep the garbage out but not keep ourselves in. Jesus didn't create a monastery in the hills for Himself and the disciples to hang out - He had a normal life; avoiding the garbage as He went.

"Godly-only" is just a sign to the sinner to keep out... in their minds at least. We must learn how to live in the world without being transformed by it but transforming it when possible.

Jonathan is right also, we take the "label" of God too lightly and brand things instead of being *about* God. "Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain" - this doesn't mean just swearing. Sometimes I think we as a culture take God too lightly and are irreverent. The podcast and site name - Geeks and God - is indeed what it's about. Nothing wrong with that... but to GodTube, what about setting up a Christian auction site and calling it God-Bay? That makes me cringe, how about you?

Jim, for all my talk about the downsides I do think that there's a compelling case to be made for "walled garden" services. Filtering services like NetNanny and so on are notoriously bad when you want to block particular kinds of content, rather than particular kinds of sites. And there will always be folks who don't want to be constantly on guard when they visit their favorite site.

While I'm not particularly fond of eHarmony, its approach is noteworthy: target a group that's not being served by 'general' offerings and focus. Jewish, Muslim, and atheist singles are welcome (though the site has definitely come under fire for booting gay and married relationship-seekers.) Building "GodlyDates.com" or something like that might have been easier in the short term, and saved them the effort of building a standalone brand that people trust.

"Piggybacking" will always be popular: gospelr.com, for example, is a Christian alternative to Twitter. It's a blindingly obvious cash-in attempt, because seriously, if you're offended on twitter, it's because you're following offensive people. If you're trying to "spread the gospel," why set up a sandbox for people who already know it?

Meh. I'm rambling! But interesting points are raised by all so far.

I think there's room for both. When I create a video, I use TubeMogul to post it wherever possible. If it's short enough, I also post it to GodTube.

I created the site LCMSPastor.com as a resource for LCMS Pastors, and most of our visitors are pastors looking for sermon ideas, etc. Anyone can go and read/listen/etc., but it's designed with that particular target demographic, and only LCMS pastors can submit content, so when someone's looking for something that's specifically LCMS, they shouldn't have to run it through their doctrine filter before using it. If I'm looking for Christian video, I can either go to YouTube and hope for the best, or I can just go to GodTube. GodTube has the advantage of being all Christian, so if I'm specifically looking for that kind of content, there's a lot less to wade through. (Since GodTube has a 30 minute limit, we can't post our hour-long episodes of CrossFeed there, though.)

I would hope that any content posted to GodTube would also be posted to YouTube so it reaches both audiences.

That said, I know there's plenty of stuff on GodTube that I wouldn't want my kids watching, either, without some parental guidance, as a lot of it runs contrary to our doctrinal beliefs.

But honestly, I don't consume much video in either place--I look for it in the iTunes directory. If it's not being podcasted, it should be. ;)

And I agree both that we need to be out in the world with our message and that there are all kinds of ways to misuse God's name. I'm not sure "GodTube" is a misuse, but I'm sure there are better names that could've been used.

And I'm going to have nightmares tonight about Godbay.

If you are going to take the stand that sites like GodTube do not serve the mission of Christ, you must be just as concerned over buildings made just for Christian worship, or schools just for Christian education, or web sites just for Geeks and God ;-)

Seriously, in one thread we talk about the gaps on the Internet for Christians and then in this thread we say what?!?

Sorry, I'm just floored by this. Hopefully, I've misunderstood the objections

I didn't realise there was such a strong debate on the issue.

I started using GodTube because our computers were protected by software that blocked sites like YouTube.
Regardless of whether people think we should be using it over YouTube or not, I don't think it'd be that big a deal to allow those of us that use it to share our videos there with others; but I'd understand if you felt otherwise.

I understand the desire to put content out there in a family safe place or for ministry use like @doulos12 does with LCMSpastor.com.

Putting things in a family safe enviornment helps to serve kids but filtering content for material appropriate for families. LCMSpastor.com servers a niche audience in their work. But, GodTube isn't either of these. GodTube is designed to be a Christian clone of a commercial site. Then, it's marketed at Christians. It's a consumer based product rather than a product targeted at helping ministries in their setting.

If the idea is to produce video material in the church and make it easily accessible to ministries and their missions in their contexts the site would be very different from what it is. It might look more like blip.tv crossed with something else.

I can't answer the question of how this helps make disciples. I don't see how it fits the commission set in Matter 28:19-20. I don't see how it helps us serve others. Maybe I'm missing it but it seems to be like loads of other things trying to cash in on Christian subculture rather than working for the mission.

This may seem harsh but that's how it looks. A mission focused site would just look differently.

While GodTube may not fit your vision of a missional site, is it possible God has a different view?