In the past, we had mainstream churches and we had TV Evangelicals. Only the largest churches actually tried to broadcast their services outside of their four walls on Sunday mornings. Anything that kept you from physically attending in a church building, be it sickness, your job, etc. then that thing was simply “of the Devil.” Then in 2020, COVID happened. Most churches stopped having services for at least a short period. The ones that did continue saw a major downturn in attendance. We all started looking for ways to stay connected and minister to our members and those in our community.
COVID has been and will always be a hotly contested topic. It’s not the scope of this article to choose sides or to get into all the political, sociological, or even the scientific facets of this event. It is sufficient to agree that this event has forever changed our outlook on streaming our church services.
Attending church services in person is still considered best for most people. However, we have become more compassionate to those who may not be able or who feel the need to not attend some or all services in person. We also recognize that many visitors may prefer to visit a church anonymously online rather than attend a service in person. In this era of stable high-speed Internet, Low-cost websites, and free Facebook and YouTube accounts, we see that we can cost-effectively reach more people with on-line streaming than by just having our church services contained within our four walls.
When discussing Video Streaming, there are many different things to consider. Do we want our services broadcast live or do we want to record them and post them later? How do we handle the legal implications of the music we sing? How will people find our online services? Is our Internet fast enough to stream live? What equipment do we need to buy? Who will run this equipment?
Do we want our services broadcast live, or do we want to record them and post them later?
If you are just getting into Video Streaming, I recommend recording your services and posting them later. This gives you the chance to work through the details and get a more polished video before trying to do everything live on Sunday morning. Broadcasting live requires special web-streaming licenses for any music that is performed. There may be other copyright issues with videos or other published works used or quoted during a sermon. By recording and posting later, you can cut out any copyrighted material and post just the sermon.
There is less equipment required, and less training needed for your volunteers to record just the sermon as opposed to live streaming the entire service. Live streaming may require multiple cameras and multiple camera angles to capture a complete service. A video switching device will be required along with someone trained to operate it. You will typically also need a streaming service such as Boxcast to take the output of your video switcher and send it to your website, Facebook, YouTube, etc.
If you are recording just the sermon posting later, you can record using any digital camera and transfer the file to your computer. On your computer, you can edit out any copyrighted material, or any confidential information that may have been recorded. Then post the video to your website, YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook, etc.
How do we handle the legal implications of the music we sing?
I am not an attorney. I don’t even play one on TV. It is my understanding, that to livestream or to record and rebroadcast any copyrighted material, you will need an appropriate license. At a minimum, you should check with CCLI for the applicable license. Ideally, you should consult an attorney with experience in this area.
How will people find our online services?
Even if you just post your sermons to YouTube, your church website should have links to the posting. These links should be prominent on your website so that members and visitors alike can easily find them.
Is our Internet fast enough to stream live?
If you are recording and posting later, you typically don’t have to worry about your Internet speed. As long as you are not still using Dial-up or DSL, you should be OK. If you are actually live-streaming, then your Internet connection becomes majorly important. Most Internet connections have a downstream speed and an upstream speed. For most consumers, the downstream speed is the most important. And it is usually what is quoted in the advertisements. However, for live-streaming, the upstream speed is most important. The speed you need is determined by the quality of the video you want to stream. Boxcast has the following recommendations:
- 3 Mbps for 480p
- 6 Mps for 720p
- 13 Mbps for 1080p
These recommendations are minimums and assume nobody else is using the Internet connection. I would at least double these numbers and then carefully watch the live stream for signs of buffering, dropped packets, etc.
Also, remember that these speeds are upload speeds. These numbers may not be in the advertisements. You may have to dig deeper with your Internet Service Provider to find the upload speeds they guarantee.
What equipment do we need to buy?
I’ve seen some churches put a cell phone on a stand near the front of the church to record the sermon. They then post that recording to YouTube later. Other churches may have multiple cameras with video-switching equipment, live-streaming equipment and services, and a soundboard dedicated to live-streaming. Wherever you are, I would take small steps towards where you want to be. Buying equipment does no good if you don’t have people trained to run it. Jumping into expensive projects can be disastrous if the congregation doesn’t understand the need for it. Start small and grow into it.
Who will run this equipment?
This can be one of the most challenging parts of a video streaming operation. A well-known axiom in churches is that 20% of your people do 80% of the work. You don’t want to dump more work and responsibility on your already overworked 20%. This is a great opportunity to enlist those who want to serve, but would rather stay in the background. Some of the younger people who already know the difference between upstream and downstream and are familiar with 720p vs 1080p might be great resources. Develop a team so that the same people do not have the responsibility every week. Develop ways to encourage communication among the team so that lessons learned one Sunday are communicated to other team members.
We are living in an age where some type of live-streaming or recording and posting is expected almost as much as heating and air conditioning.
