live stream

Has your church been using live streaming to grow community and improve discipleship?  Over the last 18 months, the church as a whole has significantly...

With the government temporarily requiring churches around the nation to shut their doors in response to COVID-19, online worship services are becoming the new norm. We don’t know how this will affect the way we do church in the long term. For the next few weeks or months, your church needs to figure out how to make an online worship service feel more like the real thing and welcome people who’ve never experienced a live stream service before.

Live streaming isn't right for every church. In an ideal world, equipment would be cheap and every church would have the infrastructure to host their own service via live stream. Now, many churches are struggling to make something work in a short amount of time because of COVID-19. This isn't a perfect world and while God isn't surprised, many churches have been. So, with that thought in mind, what are some things you can do today to maintain community and meet other than live streaming?

As church technology companies continue to consolidate, some providers are rising to the top as leaders in this industry. On March 24, 2020, Subsplash, the Seattle-based software as a service (SaaS) announced the acquisition of Cincinnati-based StreamSpot. StreamSpot is the award-winning content delivery platform providing live streaming services for faith-based organizations and businesses. In October of 2019, Subsplash announced the acquisition of Custom Church Apps, another church app provider that serves churches and ministries.

Video conferencing is a great way to connect with people when it isn’t possible to meet in person. Right now, we face the COVID-19 pandemic and business, churches, and schools are all moving to online work and instruction. Video conferencing quickly went from being somewhat useful to being one of the best replacements for face-to-face contact.

Church live streaming has one goal: connecting viewers to the Christian message. Broadcasting a sermon or other church event isn’t a newfangled idea.

You might read blog posts that insist that live streaming is going to kill the local church. To paraphrase Mark Twain, the death of the local church has been greatly exaggerated. In addressing upcoming church trends, Carey Nieuwhof mentions that after his church started a live stream they ended up with more online attendees than in-person attendees.  Live streaming didn't kill the church, but it did make them pause to consider how best to reach those online attendees.

Vacation Bible School (VBS) is one of the largest outreach events at your church. Kids from the community flock to your open doors and parents are excited to have faith-based fun draw their children away from video games. This year, if you want to take your outreach event a step further, consider doing a live stream of your VBS program.