Finding God on YouTube

Next to pet videos, pop-song parodies are probably video-sharing's most highly-evolved art form. Mike Bowen was a youth pastor at a church in North Carolina (he's now in northern California) when he first realized that posting in-house events on YouTube for congregants was less complicated than clearing bandwidth on his church website. One day, infected by the website zeitgeist, he posted a send-up of the mid-level radio hit "Lean Like a Cholo," reworded as "Act Like a Christian." For good measure, he e-mailed YouTube editors suggesting that they include it among the videos promoted daily on the site's home page. He received no response, "But about a month later," recalls Bowen, "I had about 1,000 emails in my inbox from all over the world." That's how he discovered YouTube had featured his parody, which has now been viewed more than 229,000 times. He continues to post both serious and humorous clips. "I'm glad be part of this," he says.