Considering the social distancing restrictions resulting from the coronavirus, no church should sit on the fence regarding service Livestreams. Technology has made it possible for churches to meet online and reach wider audiences.
Where the problem lies is in ensuring that your congregation enjoys a blissful Livestream experience. Remember that people find it easy to get distracted because they are watching your service from the comfort of their homes. However, if you get things right, they’ll be glued to your services from start to finish and look forward to the next one.
How can you make your church Livestream better?
Churches have found it very convenient to continue to spread the gospel through Livestream despite the pandemic. As such, they make use of media like YouTube, Facebook, and their church websites to stream their services. In this section, we take a look at 7 tips to help you improve your church’s Livestream experience.
Choose your personnel
To run a proper Livestream, you need specific hands. Not everyone needs to be involved. Before you even begin the process of streaming your services, you must answer this question. Who are the essential personnel we need to make this work?
Of course, you need your sound and media teams, how else would you steam your services? Also, you need your music team and some of the church ministers. You don’t need to have ushers or welfare teams around.
Draw up a roaster for your essential personnel. This way, you can have a maximum of 4 singers and 2 ministers in addition to your media and sound team. Both the sound and media teams cannot operate to full capacity, maybe 2 or 3 hands for each department. Ensure that while running your services, you maintain a social distancing protocol.
Setup
After choosing your teams, you need to decide on what equipment you need, and also put them in place. Speak to your department heads to come up with a list of what they need for each service. Remind them that their list should be prepared towards making the Livestream experience unforgettable.
Based on the list from each team, you can put together the equipment you need. After gathering all the pieces, it is time to set them up. Some churches prefer to set up make-shift studios while others make use of their church auditoriums. Ensure that your camera catches the right angles and your sound is pitch-perfect. Also, light up the stage properly so that you can get clear images.
Troubleshoot
Setting up your equipment is just one aspect of the job done. You need to test everything to be sure that you are ready to stream your services. There is no room for assumptions because first impressions matter. Some people will be coming in contact with your church for the first time through your streams. One mistake could turn them off for good and you would have lost a potential church member.
Test your sound to ensure that it is clear and audible enough. Also, check your picture quality to make sure that it is crisp and clear. Your lights must be on point as well else they will affect your picture quality.
We must remind you at this point that you must test your streaming platform. Many churches make use of Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram for their streams. Whichever platform you choose, ensure that you test it before your service days. It is not strange to see some large churches run tests with their mid-week services. This is because such services have fewer people in attendance.
Increase your bandwidth
This is a very important step to take if you will be streaming your services via your church website. One of the reasons why websites crash is that they are experiencing more traffic than they were designed to accommodate. You cannot afford for your website to crash during a service Livestream. That will be disastrous for your image and disheartening for your audience.
The first step here is to come up with an estimate of the amount of traffic that you expect for each stream. Remember that you should make provision for a wider audience than your current congregation size. Many people are seeking to get closer to God in these times and would likely find your Livestream.
After getting your estimate, speak to your ISP to find out if your website is capable of accommodating such traffic. If it isn’t, ask that they increase the bandwidth of the website during the times of your services.
Communicate service times
You have done a great job by preparing everything to stream your services. Now, you need to make people aware of your services. Livestreams are just like regular services when it comes to attendance. People are more interested when there are more people on the platform.
So here’s what you should do. Communicate the times for your Livestreams to your congregants and the rest of the public. You can do this through a church app like ChurchPad or your social media platforms. Also, provide the link to the Livestream a day to the service or, at least, a few hours. Create quality graphics to advertise each service to attract more attention.
Engage with the audience
Ensure that your streaming platform provides a means for your audience to drop messages through live chat. This makes the service more interactive, engaging, and fun.
To make this better, ensure that one or two members of your workforce are available to engage with the audience. They should respond to questions and also moderate the platforms while the service is going on. With more engagements, people become more interested in your services.
Show lyrics and scripture verses
This is also another way to ensure that your Livestreams are more engaging. Put up the lyrics of songs as your music team minister. Also, provide the bible verses so that people can read straight from their screens. Remember that it is pretty easy to get distracted at home so you must keep them as engaged as possible.
Conclusion
We believe that these tips will help you to improve your church’s Livestream experience. If you have any questions, you can reach out to us via the comments section. Don’t forget to check out the features of ChurchPad to improve your services and church management.