"LEVIATHAN!" intones Moretz in a dramatic moviephone voice throughout a four-minute video, he wrote, directed, filmed, produced, starred in and posted to YouTube. He's the Fr. Matthew of "Father Matthew Presents", a video blog ministry he began a year ago, shortly after his ordination to the priesthood.

"It's me, Father Matthew … and I want to introduce you to the fearful and dreaded Leviathan," begins the video. It starts with a discussion of the biblical sea monster but quickly becomes an Easter message of resurrection and new life —- as well as a metaphor to help nudge technology-shy clergy to brave the new virtual frontier.

"I want to be not the only clergy person traversing this frontier; I want companions, and don't pass it off to your youth ministers or other lay leaders," Moretz told a gathering of Los Angeles-area clergy Oct. 7-9 in Palm Springs, California, his first keynote address to a clergy conference.

"I would hope that, as we take the lead in communicating the gospel from pulpits, we would take the lead in communicating it from computer screens. It is a part of our ordination vows; we are laboring together to build up the family of God and this is one way to do it. It is not primarily about learning a new technology, it's about navigating a new social world. People who watch YouTube are engaging in new reordering of reality."

Episco-blogging —- a new world?
"Father Matthew Presents" is a collection of 41 videos, most of which chronicle life at Moretz's former parish, St. Paul's in Yonkers. They incorporate such topics as: Making Sense of Sin; The Faithful Acolyte, Diversity in Faith, and Blasphemy Challenge, which took on "aggressive atheism" and received an unprecedented 60,000 website viewings.

Moretz, 28, a cradle Episcopalian from Augusta, Georgia, is a graduate of Episcopal schools and the General Theological Seminary. He says the inspiration for his video blog ministry came, in part, because of the lack of an Episcopal voice on the airwaves and from a desire to "tell the story from our perspective."

Initially, he hoped it would attract new members to St. Paul's, a church "devastated by the effects of white flight and parish conflicts." Over a 20-year period the congregation had dwindled from 300 to five.

"It was a beautiful church, but with no people. The physical plant was kept afloat by income from cell towers in the bell tower" and renting out space to another denomination. The Diocese of New York, aided by a grant from Trinity Wall Street that funded his position, sought to revitalize it.

Aspects of church and parish life, such as replacing a tarnished outdoor Episcopal Church sign, the millennium development goals and a puppet show on Scripture, Tradition and Reason became fodder for Moretz's blogs. "Father Matthew Presents" is also hosted on http://www.askthepriest.com/ and on the Rev. Barbara Crafton's Geranium Farm website; Moretz credits Crafton for his early inspiration.

Initially, he fell "prey to the talking head format" and strongly advises against slapping entire sermons or worship services on websites because "they just don't fit. This is a new landscape of video content in short form. We need to embrace this fact rather than trying to fit a camel through a needle."

He says he has improved with each video, has about 720 subscribers, and collectively his videos have received over 119,058 viewings.

Ultimately, the ministry drew only a handful of new members—but also created "relationships, and not just at the parish. It created energy, and not just parish energy but on some other level. I still don't have a handle on it. I don't know where it begins and ends."

Part of that energy includes serving as intermediary between the church and virtual audience. Invitations to speak at other gatherings are already lining up as well as an invitation for a return trip to Los Angeles.

The Rev. Eric Law said he'd like to incorporate Moretz's 'Blasphemy Challenge' video into spark church conversations "about what a real dialogue looks like between an atheist and a Christian."

Law, the director of the Kaleidoscope Institute, a ministry of the Diocese of Los Angeles which offers cultural sensitivity and other leadership training, said Moretz's videos add a key element to religious discourse: "Respect, which is missing. Out there in this cyberworld, you don't have to be nice, because I don't have to see your face."

"If we don't take advantage of these tools, we do so at our peril," added Moretz, now a curate at Christ Church in Rye, New York, from which he has already posted "New Position!" "We're at the foundations of this new world and there's still time to raise eyebrows, time to create a national stir if we got organized, this could be a real niche for the Episcopal Church."

Cyber-world: where the clergy should be
Creating a three-to-four minute video generally takes seven or eight hours, a process Moretz likens to preparing a sermon and one he undertakes on weeks he is not scheduled to preach.

It is both labor and time-intensive, and requires, among other things, computer and software (he uses Studio Pinnacle 10 Windows) capable of video production, appropriate lighting and, in his case, a tripod.

Video-blogging also offers fewer opportunities for human interaction, particularly with strangers, "which is troubling, especially in a community like ours that sees God in the stranger," he adds. As such, videoblogging isn't a replacement for traditional ministry but more the virtual equivalent of an "Eat at Joe's sign or an Eat at Christ sign, as a platform for actual human tangible community," he says.

Maintaining creative, compelling and relevant content is also difficult; so is weathering "raw public opinion (sometimes) at its most cruel and merciless …  both with merit and without."

Responses to Moretz's "Leviathan" video, which has been viewed 3,130 times since its April 23, 2007 posting, run the gamut.

"Is he really a priest?" asked ninjagrayfox on the website.

From Superfisto: "If all Christians were like you I wouldn't be an atheist."

At times, the criticism has been unacceptable. "I've been called a pedophile," Moretz said. "I just delete it; other things I leave up." Some viewers claiming to be atheist "have refused to believe I'm a Christian," he said. "They quote Scripture against me like a fundamentalist would."

All of which is good news. "In short, we (Episcopalians) are a novelty," he says. "We are fresh, intriguing, just by being who we are."

All the more reason to become videobloggers with "the potential to expand our circles in leaps and bounds. This allows for new human relationships, gatherings, fellowships, for transcending geography and local identity—these are places clergy should be.

"It's like walking to work in a city with cheap public transportation, these tools are there to enhance our lives, they are there to enhance our reach as spiritual leaders," he said. "It would be nice if the Episcopal Church included armchair clergy missionaries using their skills to incarnate the Gospel in a virtual world."