Live Streaming

Video isn't going anywhere. In fact, video is perhaps the fastest growing ministry tool available to churches and believers all around the world. We recently shared a helpful article that covered seven ways video can save your pastor time, and these suggestions can easily parlay into opportunities to share the Gospel and ministry of your church with a wider audience.

You’re called into the pastor’s office. You’re assured it’s no big deal and you have no reason to doubt that, that is, until you hear the words, “I want us to start live streaming.” In your pastor’s mind, it’s maybe another five minutes of work and you’ve already got everything you’ll need. But you know otherwise.

The Internet has had quite an impact on the Church. According to a Faith Communities Today survey, the number of congregations across America using email more than doubled between 2000 and 2010. Ninety percent of congregations had embraced this technology, while just 35 percent had done the same a decade earlier. On top of this, the number of congregations employing websites in their daily operations had jumped from 33 percent to 69 percent in the same space of time. As with many other groups and organizations, the Internet allows members of the Church to share their message and maintain contact at any time, any place.

Live streaming is becoming less of a technical novelty and more a requirement for many churches--something that makes a lot of sense. Sure, online live streaming technology allows you to broadcast and distribute your message around the world, but it also allows you to reach local community members that may not be able to make it to church every week (or at all). The question is, can they hear you? You know that audio is the most important part of any live stream, right?

When it comes to video production equipment, it seems the technology has a short shelf life and is constantly being updated. It can be daunting to decide what camera to purchase knowing that whatever you sink a large chunk of change into today could very well be an oversized paper weight tomorrow. I guess that could be a bit extreme, however, there is one piece of equipment that if you get right, can hold its value better than gold.

Over the past couple years, ChurchTechToday has covered the topic of live streaming church services a number of times and from different angle. It seems that churches all over the world are interested in find out more about the relatively new practice of streaming one's services live via video over the internet. There are many reasons churches intend to reach people via live streaming: for the elderly who cannot physically attend services to missionaries out of the country, for people with Sunday work schedules, and for people interested in pursuing God but are afraid to step foot in a church.

With the release of the new Apple TV device, Apple has opened up it's app store to developers. What does this mean for churches? If means you have a new and very exciting way to reach your congregation with videos and live streaming. Past models have been used by churches as an affordable way to share videos or content inside the building. For only $149, the church could connect it to the projector and the internet and display a slideshow or a movie.

The great thing about technology is that while prices start high, they tend to go down and do so quickly. When I first started...