Online Religious Education

Click here to see video presentation of this paper at the 2nd International Scholars' Conference, Oct 15-16, 2014
Draft 8 Oct 27, 2014:
Factors Affecting Online Religious Education Media Successes, Differences and Comparisons With Traditional Methods

Writer: Winelfred G. Pasamba (Computer Science)
Consultants: Mr. Teofilo C. Esguerra (Educational Technology), Pastor Petronio M. Genebago (Theology)

Abstract: A case study of an online non-monetized religious educational channel, this paper enumerates observed factors affecting online video viewership and provides possible answers to the following questions: How the title affects viewership? Which countries have most viewers? Which countries tend to complete viewing a long lecture? What topics people are most interested in? Which speakers are people watching the most? How does facebook sharing impact viewership? Which kinds of lectures have high viewer retention? What are the Biblical bases and principles for religious online media efforts? Which principles from the writings of Ellen G. White have correlated with the measurements? All the videos, technology,motivation, and talents are brought about by the working of the Holy Spirit, this is clear and should be kept in mind in reading this report.

Objectives

To show the differences and similarities between online media and traditional methods of lecturing.
To show different factors which were observed to correlate to number of views, audience retention, long-term sustainability of viewership, engagement, and appreciation.
To highlight that following the counsel of God thru the prophets is the best way to do religious education, even in the high-tech era.

Introduction
    Religious education is our Master's great commission to all who follow Him. Evangelism is the purpose of the church. This is a lofty, joyous, and beneficial activity which results will be immortalized. The greatest thing men can do is to save other men from destruction. It is only possible by God's power, grace, and Word.
    Technology has always been making changes on how we do things and some adjustments have to be made, not in principle, but in methods, to utilize the added benefits of new technology.
    The Internet has changed communication, relationships, research, business processes, etc... and it introduces new venues and opportunities for religious education. This paper is a description of an effort which is also an experiment. The case study of the YouTuble channel named "winelfredpasamba" which has about 1260 videos from different church activities, revival activities, religious lectures, theological forums, mission reports, simple music videos, nature videos, church lectures, campmeeting lectures, conference lectures, and the like. YouTube Analytics data will be analyzed to give advice which aspect of online religious education can be improved, changed, or kept as good as it currently is.
    The channel, though not the most popular of its kind, represents a sample of what a moderately busy channel is. The reader is however cautioned not to depend or put their confidence on numbers, statistics, graphs, ideas, and writings, but on God. This safety has to be mentioned to avoid the sin of self-reliance. It should be understood that "all things are of God", 2 Corinthians 5:18.

Advantages of Online Lectures

Replayable
Viewers can rewind a lecture to rewatch a portion of the lecture. The publisher sees which portion is viewed or reviewed more, they look like bumps in the viewer retention graph.
Pauseable
Viewers can pause a lecture to do some urgent thing, then resume watching it later.
Low or no cost
Watching lectures don't cost building rent, travel costs, hotel costs, etc... In the publishing side, it is a lot cheaper than satellite or terrestrial television.
Worldwide audience potential

YouTube Videos have an worldwide reach. There are 216 countries that have at least 1 view recorded.
Audience Reception analytics. It is possible to see the performance of each video over time and observe correlations to events, promotional efforts, general curiosities, and the actual hunger for truth of the general online population.

Observations:
- Deadly Distractions & Drift - was recorded by AmazingFacts and HopeChannel at the General Conference Headquarters in January 2012, and it seems to have high demand in the first year of posting. It still has high demand at the time of writing but not as much. It is interpreted that people want to watch something they don't know yet, as the outline of Bible verses in this lecture has not been seen yet in other religious lectures available to the researcher. The high Average View Duration of 17:51 says that viewers are learning from this video.
- Love, Courthip, & Marriage - has an Average View Duration of only 6:12 because the start of the video is a slow drama, and many don't have patience to watch a drama on youtube. Another suspected factor of low retention for this video is the clarity of sound and quality of recording. However in real-life presentations, this topic by Pastor Joe Orbe Jr. draws a lot of interest, the writer and many acquaintances have attended this lecture more than 4 times without getting tired of it. At one occasion at Batangas it took more than 6 hours with many questions and answers. It is a highly sought topic specially from the youth.
- The Mark of the Beast, The Mysterious Number 666 - has a big surge of views near the publishing date. It might be mainly from Facebook promotions. The writer observed that the more facebook group posts is made, the more views after several days. That is multiplied by the naturally interesting and seemingly fearful topic.
- David Gates Testimony On Music - we don't know who is watching these but the viewership is somewhat more consistent over time, and comments are also many. Music is an issue not understood by many in the church, and controversial for many. Aside from the drawing of controversiality of music, David Gates seems to have found an impotant secret in ministry - total self-sacrifice. EGW says, "To every one who offers himself to the Lord for service, withholding nothing, is given power for the attainment of measureless results.—Testimonies for the Church 7:30."
- What is hell? Where is hell? - this video and topic seems to have a growing interest as shown in the orange line in the graph. This video is not promoted in facebook. It is self-promoting due to the question format title, and general hunger for truth.
Variable Quality
Online videos do not have to be as serious as terrestrial or sattelite television in production quality. The users themselves mostly at present don't have the bandwidth to watch TV quality programming. While satellite television bandwidth ranges from 5mbps to 24mbps, youtube bandwidth ranges from 50kbps - 5mbps only. So expectations are lower, quality video equipment is more optional, and expense is also therefore lower.
Increasing Viewership

The portion from 2010 to March 2013 is almost like an exponential curve. There has been less growth after but still continuous growth, and more surely continous ministry and continuous religious education. Some things demand more prayer and fasting, as Jesus says, "This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting" Mark 9:29.
No time limit
Lecturers can put all their material, proofs, explanations, etc. in online videos because viewers have the option of viewing all of them anyway. One lecturer, Jun Lumingkit, likes to put all that he knows into his lectures. Some messages will be up to 2 hours, but amazingly they are still watched, and many there are testimonies in comments below the videos. It only affirms that people are hungry for truth.

In the Bible we remember Jesus talking for days to thousands of people, at times also feeding them (Matthew 14:13-21). Paul also preached long, more than the whole night, in Acts 20. Though EGW counsels that the best length of a sermon is about half an hour, and about one hour maximum (Pastoral Ministry, p. 199.5), there were times when she was preaching and then taken in vision {2BIO 236} for a long time while the people waited.

So despite of the general low viewing duration of youtube videos , it is still possible to treat creating video lectures like writing a book full of information. A video book wherein viewers can scroll back and forth the timeline, and a book that reads itself aloud.

Disadvantages of Online Videos

Easy to quit
Not like face-to-face lectures or lectures in church settings, online viewers are not embarrased to close a window of a playing video. In fact Viewer Retention is a significant performance measurement in YouTube videos.
Many distractions
Your audience can be checking email, sending messages, or facebooking while your video is playing.
Lack of interactive dynamics
The advantage of real-life preaching or teaching is that the teacher can monitor the audience and adjust the speed of presentation or the direction of the discussion. In online video, there is nothing or less of this. Less because some can create interactive branches in the presentation but it is more laborious. In face-to-face presentations, it is effortless for experienced lecturers to monitor the audience thru their eyes, body language, reactions, and smiles or frowns. There are just so much communication coming back from a live audience which is not present in online video presentations.

Factors That Matter More in Online Lectures

The Title Factor
According to "The Anatomy of a Search Engine (Google)" (by Page & Brin) in section 4.5 "The Ranking System", the Title of a document, in this case a video, play a very significant role on the "PageRank" of a document amongst other hits for the same search query. This is a big factor for our purpose of our video/document being discovered by searchers. There are other factors such as the URL, the font, and the number of term repetitions but the URL and font are not in our control if we publish in youtube. Regarding the term repetitions, the math for this is sensitive to abuse so we haven't observed benefit from repeating terms, and it is not an honest practice of "priming" the search engine anyway.

We have been educated in our english classes at school on how to make interesting titles that catch the interest. They usually include some form of suspense what might hook the curiousity of some who only has time to read the title. Afterwhich we transition to our real purpose inside the document itself. This teaching however does not work in the internet very well. The reason is that most people find what they need not thru curiousity attracting titles but thru search engines. Curious titles are of benefit for some news sites that advertise their own content inline with other news. However if we publish in youtube we cannot do that as easily. Even if it is done the gains would not outweigh the gains of titling videos according to probable search engine queries of people looking for information such as that our video presents. This is specially true because google has become a verb, and youtube has become the 2nd largest search engine (second to google, the parent company). According to NetMarketShare (https://www.netmarketshare.com/search-engine-market-share.aspx?qprid=4&qpcustomd=) Google proccesses 66% of desktop queries which amount to around 2 million queries per minute according to Intel (http://www.intel.ph/content/www/ph/en/communications/internet-minute-infographic.html).

To be able to ride on these facts we have to guess what users type in google and then title our videos or documents exactly the same for higher PageRank value. In 2012 the author queried Google AdWords planner to estimate the number of searches a month for particular words or related phrase arangements. The words selected were terms we have doctrinal answers for, like hell, death, salvation, Jesus Christ, church, prayer, etc... Here are some of the results:

nov 1, 2012
monthly searches:
"how can i be saved" - 5,000,000

"how to pray" - 3,336,000

"which day is the seventh day" - 11,100,000

"what day is the seventh day" - 11,100,000

"what is the seventh day" - 11,100,000

The numbers amazingly tell us that the world is searching for truth. And that we have to make articles and videos who's title is exactly the question of the searcher, instead of using some ambigous curiosity bait as the title.

The author has experimented with three videos which were downloaded from AmazingFacts.org, a supporting ministry of the Seventh-day Adventist Church offering free downloads of all their sermons. Sermons about Hell, Salvation, the True Church topics were collected and re-uploaded to the winelfredpasamba channel. Note that no external promotion was made either by pasting links in Facebook or in Google Plus. (Both these promotional techniques have been observed to generate views in roughly direct proportion to the number of groups the video is pasted into.)

Here are the lifetime views of the videos and their analyses:

Title	Lifetime Views (June 23, 2013)	Analysis
How Can I Be Saved - How to be Saved - Doug Batchelor	253	Low, probably because of two questions in the title, or maybe because there are so many other videos on "how to be saved".
What is hell? Where is Hell? - Doug Batchelor 1/2	6532	High, probably many are seeking truth
What is hell? Where is Hell? - Doug Batchelor 2/2	2087	High, these are the people who continued watching from the first half of the presentation. Genuine seekers.

It means that there is great benefit of titling documents and videos as much as possible in the same phrases we expect people to type in Google.

Another example of comparison is an experiment of the same video uploaded twice. One having the original title and the other being titled in a question manner:

Title	PublishDate	Lifetime Views	Days	Views/Day
How do i find a church? Which is the true church?	June 26, 2012	907	727	1.25
Revelation's Four Galloping Horsemen and the Answer toWhySoManyDenominations -Discoveries08 - 19	Feb 18, 2011	783	1221	0.64

Changing the title to question format has increased views/day up to almost 100% more in this video.

The Topic Factor
This section shows a series of lectures preached sequentially and highlights the topics that tend to have more views than the rest.

Discoveries08 - by Mark Finley. These were batch uploaded on Feb. 17, 2011. This ranking does not mean that any of them are less important than the other, all of them are. What is shown here is the attractiveness of different kinds of topics. It is suspected that many of the vieweres are Seventh-day Adventists who want to enjoy reviewing the truth, as we say "truth is sweet".

Title	Topic	Views	Interpretation / Other Factors
Mark of the Beast, Mysterious Number 666 and Last Day Predictions	666, Mark of the Beast	7637	lots of people are curious of the topic fear factor
Amazing Discoveries in the Lost Cities of the Dead	Prophecy	5122	this is the first video in the series landing factor
Jesus, Jerusalem and Startling End Time Prophecies	Prophecy, Jesus, End Time	4452	urgency factor
When Paganism and Christianity Shake Hands	Change of the Sabbath	4202	?
Journey to Eternity - "What is Heaven Like"	Heaven	2484
Iraq, An Ancient King's Dream, and Our Future	Daniel 2	2439
Good God, Bad World, Why?	Origin of Evil	1900	questions in life, suffering, death
Journey to Eternity - "What is Heaven Like"	Heaven	1812	This is a reupload, the original upload had an error somewhere in the middle. An annotation was placed near the error redirecting viewers to this video instead.
A Centuries Old Remedy for Stress	Sabbath	1635
The Child Born in the Middle East Will Change The World	Prophecies of the Messiah	1424
The Roman Empire, The United States and a Collapsing Society	Law of God	1074	This would have gotten more views if the title was "10 Commandments".
Evil in Chains - When the Great Controversy Between Good and Evil Ends	Millenium	984

Only the top 12 videos of the 23 lectures are shown above with their interpretation. The restare shown below without interpretation and topic statement.
Discoveries08 2nd Page

This information was given to local tagalog preacher "Jun Lumingkit" who has recorded some 20 lectures and encouragement was given to have lectures with topic and title about "666 and Mark of the Beast". The result is parallel of what is expressed above. The tagalog video of "666 / Mark Of The Beast" has even surpassed Mark Finley's video in views.

Title / Topic	Views	Date Published	Days	Views/Day
The Mark of the Beast, the Mysterious Number 666 and Last Day Predictions - Mark Finley	7637	Feb 17, 2011	1222	6.25
666 at Marka ng Hayop - Jun Lumingkit	5983	Nov 26, 2012	547	10.94

A possible reason why Mark Finley has lower views per day is that, though as far as we know, this channel was the first to reupload Discoveries08 which is freely downloadable from http://discoveries08.org/, and for several months only this channel had this series, other Seventh-day Adventist youtube uploaders caught on and reuploaded the same videos. Therefore splitting the viewership in proportions. This practice is not interpreted as "competition" but rather encouraged as anyone can do it, and everyone should be a witness.

Regarding Jun Lumingkit's tagalog version: A google search for "666 marka ng hayop" was done in June 24, 2014 and though the top 10 links to articles are from other sources and denominations, the only video link is from our channel (saved google results). Interestingly a Youtube search on the same date shows that no other channel of video discusses "666" and "marka ng hayop" particularly in Tagalog (saved youtube search results).

This information guides us to our next factor -- firstness, popularity, recommendations, and link-to's.

The Factors of Firstness, Popularity, Recommendations, and Link-To's
Being first to upload a video title or topic in a specific language makes the video seminal in that topic and language and therefore will get the earliest popularity. The earlier a video can be made, the more hits will it have over time compared to videos uploaded just recently, given all other factors are the same.

Another advantage of earliness, is related to how YouTube and Google rank the search results and recommendations. PageRank algorithm treats "Link-To's" highly. Meaning if your video is linked-to from other videos or articles or documents or websites or facebook "shares", google interprets it as more popular, therefore PageRank algorithm ranks a link higher. And a link that has higher pagerank will get more hits naturally. So earliness or firstness is a significant factor.

Recommendation: We should "make haste" to upload all available videos with "question titles", and make more videos that answer people's queries uploading them as quickly as possible. Reason being that internet speeds is every growing and asking Google and YouTube questions about life and religion and spirituality is becoming more and more practiced.
Questions in the Video Description
It is observed that the top video "Deadly Distractions & Drift" which has three times more views than the second most popular video have questions in the Description field. The writer viewed this video and put all the questions tackled in the description. This seems to be a good idea too. The writer thinks it benefits Facebook shares because there are only three things facebook shows in links, the Title, the Description, and the Thumbnail. However most other sites, including YouTube itself in their recommendations pane, in their playlists, and elsewhere, only show the Thumbnails and Titles.

Analysis of Top Ten "Liked" Videos

Deadly Distractions & Drift - is a rare video title with a rare sequence of Bible texts presented. It is a rare video because it takes some effort to find the download link from the original website.
What is hell? Where is Hell? - nothing special, they like it because it is truth.
David Gates' Testimonies On Music - many like this missionary because of his great personal sacrifice for missions. He is an inspiration to so many people in media ministry.
666 / Mark of the Beast / Marka ng Hayop - popular, and well-liked, because of well-sought topic/title and truthfulness of message.
David Asscherick Testimony - popular name.
Music & The 3 Angels Message - it is uncertain why this is liked a lot, but it is truthful. The author doesn't even know the name of the lecturer. It is the message that is nice.

Analysis of Top Ten Videos and their Performance

Deadly Distractions & Drift - unique message, important message, heartfelt, firstness factor, uniqueness factor, rare video, not easy to find original download link, almost no competition, annotation to advertise
Love, Courtship & Marriage - Getting It Right - irresistible title for the youth
Mark of the Beast, 666 - curiosity, fear, information, truthfulness
666, Marka ng Hayop - this is a two-hour lecture, amazingly the average viewer retention is 20 minutes. Top retention among the top ten videos.
David Gates Testimonies - self sacrifice for mission, inspiring stories of faith
What is hell? Where is hell? - question title, need-to-know attitude, Biblical answer, lots of misinformation around
Ang Plano Ng Diyos Sa Kaligtasan - salvation in tagalog, prayerful lecturer
Amazing Discoveries - "amazing discoveries", prophecy, landing video for the Discoveries08 playlist
David Asscherick - popular Adventist preacher, testimony, intelligent

Counsels of the Bible and Ellen G. White Which Help Online Religious Education

Humility. "A man's pride shall bring him low: but honour shall uphold the humble in spirit." Proverbs 29:23.
Many of the channel's lecturers are not yet graduate of degrees but they try their best and God is graciously using them as instruments of truth. It is important to not be proud despite all these gadgets and equipment since our work is only to teach, but it is actually the Holy Spirit's unction that converts people.
Prayer. "Pray without ceasing" 1 Thes 5:17. Since the great controversy is bigger than what we understand, it is imperative that we synchronize efforts and toughts with God.
"Go ye into all the world." Mark 16:15. We have to go where the people are, and they are in the internet. They are asking Google questions. They are searching YouTube, they are lingering in Facebook. We have to show them answers from God's Word.
"Sow beside all waters" Isaiah 32:20. We have to make Biblical videos answering people's questions in different languages as early as possible.
"Write the vision... Make it plain... that he may run that readeth it", Habakuk 2:2. This means that the audio and text and video have to be clear and solidly from God, because God's Word moves people. This idea of writing God's word has automated plenty of gospel work. Literature Evangelists, the Written Word, the Recorded Word, the Video Word, etc... They all aid our lack of strength, time, and even our forgetfulness.
"Teaching them to observe all things " Matthew 28:20. Despite the normal YouTube viewer retention of about 3 minutes, many of the lectures exceed an hour, with some even two to three hours. These are still watched anyway. We interpret it as the people's great hunger for the truths from the Bible.
"Success Not Dependent on Outward Display", Ellen G. White, Evangelism, p. 136. Most of the videos don't have fancy intros or fancy extros, and most graphics are simple or the stock that comes with the set of sermons. Despite the seemingly lack of artistry, it seems that the viewers are not after the display but after the truth instead.

    Many other counsels are in the Bible and EGW writings that are beyond the complete emphasis of this document. Specifically from the Bible the commission to the disciples, their training, and their experiences. Additionally EGW has what is probably the best book in religious education (evangelism) in the book Evangelism. As Mark Finley says in one of the Evangelism Training Videos at http://rightlytrained.org/, paraphrased, "in our experience, those who follow the writings, have more successes". Therefore the writer recommends that the book Evangelism be used as a "checklist" in online media ministry as they are still valid and best counsel in any kind of technology used for religious education.

Conclusion and Recommendations
    Firstly we base our understanding from Bible prescription to "go into all the world", "teach ... all things", "make it plain"[clear], and "write it on tables" [retransmittable, retrievable, reproducible], and that "he that readeth may run" [do it quickly]. Mark 16:15, Matthew 28:20, Habakkuk 2:2.
    Secondly, Ellen G. White affirms in Evangelism many things like prayer, humility, dependence on God, the work of the Holy Spirit in convicting souls, and our part in enthusiasm and perseverance, and in teaching more than preaching, of other many thousands of other beneficial counsels.
    It is therefore recommended that all Christians, study the Bible carefully, believing the prophets of God, and share the truths as the Bible says so. Additionally the opportunities of YouTube, Facebook, the Internet as a whole, and the [computer science] understanding of how those work, brings forward special points that will greatly benefit religious education more. The ideas shown align with Biblical and SOP principles, prescriptions, and methods, though not all the time agreeing with traditional publishing and titling conventions. Therefore the writer encourages Seventh-day Adventist media ministries to consider the following:

Re-title or dual-title videos and articles towards having titles that look more like questions seekers would probably type in search engines. Search is the business of the day.
Upload all religious education videos that are 100% Biblically sound and 100% affirmed by SOP. At this time of writing YouTube is the most ready video service that can handle lots of load when the Holy Spirit inspires millions people to search for truth and watch previously uploaded videos. The earlier a video is uploaded, the more views and likes will it usually have, and the more recommendations will be given to it by Google/Youtube's algorithms. The internet is getting faster day after day, and our videos have to be there already established when the masses get on online videos.
Encourage all languages to teach biblical truths in video to prepare the future education for third-world countries when their internet reaches video speeds. This is specially an opportunity in multi-cultural international Seventh-day Adventist Schools where theology or other ministry-minded students or scholars of the church have more time and opportunity than when they are in the field.
With respect to all, it is humbly suggested that media ministries acquaint themselves with the counsels of God thru the prophets specifically the messenger of the Lord who has present truth for this generation. Following them increases efficiency in the work.
Despite all the nice things that God allows us to participate in, we should remember Jesus saying "Notwithstanding in this rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you; but rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven." Luke 10:20, just to keep pride and self-centeredness in check.

To summarize, there is a growing online audience, and we have to meet the people where they are, "teaching them to observe all things" whatsoever God has commanded us.