ORLANDO — For more than four years, the Rev. Ken Crossman, a retired elder living here, has received dialysis treatments three times a week. Each session lasts just over four hours.

That’s a lot of time to fill, so Crossman asked the pastors of some of the conference’s larger churches to send him tapes of their sermons to listen to during his treatments.

Crossman said he enjoyed listening to the sermons, but heard the Lord telling him to expand the collection into a ministry. That ministry is called the Sermon Listening Exchange, an Internet site where pastors can submit sermon tapes and other clergy and laity can order them.

One goal of the ministry is to help improve preaching within the conference by offering pastors a learning resource, according to Crossman.

"Preaching is the heart and soul of the church and the pastor," he said. "Most pastors are busy Sunday mornings and don’t get the chance to hear each other preach. This is about building relationships among clergy who can’t hear each other preach."

The tapes also provide pastors with a fresh resource of stories and examples they can use when preaching, according to Crossman.

A total of 20 pastors have submitted sermons so far, including Florida Bishop J. Lloyd Knox. There are also sermons from the late E. Stanley Jones, a United Methodist missionary and evangelist, and Dr. Gordon Hunter, an evangelist with the United Church of Canada.

Crossman said he is also looking for sermons from the late Bishop Cornelius L. Henderson and has asked Bishop Timothy Whitaker to submit some of his sermons to help people in the Florida Conference become more familiar with their new bishop.

The Rev. Bob Brown, pastor of Coronado United Methodist Church in New Smyrna Beach, said he was flattered when Crossman asked him to send his sermon tapes. Although he doesn’t like to listen to his own sermons, he said he hopes others would enjoy his "unique perspective on communicating the gospel."

Crossman said the Exchange can also help new pastors gain exposure. "There could be a person in a small church who might have the gift of preaching, but nobody knows about it for 10 years, until they get to a larger church," he said.

Copies of the sermons are available through the ministry’s Web site at http://www.sermonlisteningexchange.org   at a cost of $1 each, with a minimum of six sermons per order. Sermons can be ordered in multiples of three tapes, with a sermon on each side of the tape.