SermonAudio, an online platform for storing and broadcasting sermons, recently set up servers known as The Vault at Bob Jones University on the second floor of the Mack Building. Steven Lee, who founded SermonAudio in 2000, said The Vault will serve to protect sermons from cancel culture and provide ministry opportunities for BJU students.
The Vault will also provide the staff of SermonAudio with a physical location to work and collaborate in person for the first time, according to a special report by Lee about The Vault on SermonAudio’s website.
Using their own servers and storage arrays will allow SermonAudio to resist potential efforts to have their content taken down. “This is why the cloud providers are so powerful,” Lee wrote in the report.
Like many other SermonAudio team members, Lee graduated from BJU, which he said was part of the reason he asked to build The Vault at BJU. “We want to be in an environment where we can influence the rising generation in some way,” Lee said. He hopes to involve computer science majors in the upkeep of the technical side of The Vault to the point where computer science student interns almost completely operate it.
Lee also said he hopes any students who are interested will stop by and see The Vault. “We have a very open area here where we have large screens set up so people can see a large map of the world. It will show where people are listening to sermons all over the world in real time,” he said.
Students are welcome to join in on staff meetings on Fridays and to join the staff for a daily international hybrid prayer meeting at noon, either physically or online. They are also invited to SermonAudio’s Foundations Conference later this year, which will feature preachers from around the country. SermonAudio will waive the $50 charge for students who use the promo code “found2022” to register for the conference at thefoundationsconference.com.
While SermonAudio still needs funds to finish The Vault, Lee wrote that they are taking the first step of faith. “[A] donor has committed to fund- ing the construction of the $400k space but the actual servers, storage arrays, and raw equipment still needed will approach $1M,” Lee wrote in the report. “The Lord doesn’t need us, but I believe He can use us. I want to prove the Lord in this moment.”
