New Website!
It is my joy, as you find yourself perusing this page, to welcome you to the new internet home of Marsh Chapel. Progressing into the 21st century, the wonders of technology provide us with many and wonderful new tools for ministry, along with not insignificant challenges. For those who are familiar with the old stlye, the most obvious change is the new look. Many thanks to Matt Fredenburg and Creative Services at Boston University for their graphic design and template work for the website. You may also note that the organization of the site takes on a new cast, with primary focus on our life in ministry and the many people involved. Boston University is the historical home of Boston personalism, a philosophy and theology that starts with the infinte dignity and worth of every human being. It is our hope that this website reflects such a worldview and furthermore situates us as people in an environment of experience. It is our experience of one another and of our location in time and space that mediate divine life in our midst.
Several new features on the site deserve special mention. First, at the top of each page there is a toolbar including links to pages for reservations and pastoral contact. The reservations page is the place to go to reserve space in Marsh Chapel. The pastoral contact page allows you to request that one of the chaplains be in touch with you and serves as a key component in our committment to provide pastoral interaction with every person in the Boston University community who so desires.
Many of you, especially radio and internet listeners, have expressed interest in having the bulletin posted on our website so that you might follow along. At long last, the new site provides this capability. In fact, it does so in several forms. If you look under the worship section for our Sunday morning service, you will find the bulletin archive. Also, a "This Sunday at Marsh" page indicates only the basics, such as scripture readings, sermon title, hymn names and numbers, anthems, and prelude and postlude. Forthcoming choir repertoire is also available, and information about how to subscribe to the podcast of the service.
An entire section on sermons gives access to a year's worth of Marsh Chapel sermons with special archives of guest preachers, the summer preaching series, and the Marsh Chapel sermons of our most recent dean, the Rev. Dr. Robert Cummings Neville. The sermon archive also points to blogs Dean Hill and I keep of our own homiletical material, Dean Hill's reaching back into his tenure at Asbury First United Methodist Church in Rochester, New York.
For those of you who may be getting married, you will find a completely revamped weddings section under the worship section. For the first time, the wedding application is online along with the organist application. Currently, payment must still be made by check, although we are working to make credit card payments available as soon as possible.
This new website provides a significant advance in the public image of Marsh Chapel across Boston University and to the world. However, it is not yet finished! Forthcoming are options for online payment for materials and services along with online contributions. We inted the website to be a driving force in our communications efforts. Integration of our e-newsletter, Common Ground, is in the works. Marsh Chapel contributes to the forthcoming Boston University campus on iTunesU and we have a thriving presence on Facebook. Both will be further available through the site. For our radio and internet Sunday morning listeners, we are working to provide a web forum for you to interact with us and share together in the gospel of grace and freedom. We will be working over the course of the year to further develop the material about the fullness of religious life at Boston University.
We hope you find the site helpful and a meaningful expression of who we are together in the partnership of the gospel. Check back often as we will be frequently changing and updating material: text and pictures. Now walk in love, as Christ loved us, an offering and sacrifice to God.
Peace,
