FROM the pulpit to the people, parishioners at a Malvern church can now download the Sunday sermon onto digital music players.

St Andrew's Church, Poolbrook, used a laptop computer to record the sermon for the first time last Sunday and it is now available as a podcast through its website.

Knowing music fans download everything from Elgar to the Arctic Monkeys onto iPods or MP3 players, The Rev. Paul Finch and a group of church members decided to try the same thing with sermons.

"We're trying to move forward and reach people in various forms of communication," he said.

Mr Finch's son, John-Mark, 25, a London-based media sound engineer, designs the church website and has helped with the technical side of recording the sermon.

Mr Finch said he and his curate, The Rev. Iain McFarlane, were always thinking about how to make the church more accessible.

The podcasts are for both internal and external consumption, to connect with people who the church might not be reaching.

"People who have MP3 players are not just young people, it's people across the board," he said.

By downloading the sermon, parishioners who miss church still get to hear it.

Although it is published on the website, Mr Finch said it was sometimes easier for people to hear things rather than read them.

It took more than six months to develop the idea of turning sermons into podcasts, but there is no stopping Mr Finch and his team's love of technology.

The next stage is to make visual podcasts, digital video recordings of sermons for parishioners to download.

PowerPoint presentations, computer slide shows, are already part of services and Mr Finch said many people used e-mail to pose questions about faith they might not be comfortable asking face to face.

One member of the congregation who has downloaded a sermon onto her MP3 player is Jackie Bailey.

"If I'd closed my eyes, I could have probably been in church. It was very, very clear," she said.

The initiative has also received the backing of the Bishop of Worcester. The Rt Rev. Dr Peter Selby said: "I am glad to welcome the use of this modern means of communication to reach the widest possible audience with the message of the Gospel."

St Andrews sermons are available to download for free through iTunes at www.standrewmalvern. co.uk.