Streaming for the church

So here we are… Crisis point for the world and it’s up to the internet to keep sane (that’s something I never thought I’d say). I’ve already seen many taking to social media to offer classes and groups for interaction and well being.

It’s brilliant to see so many churches now embracing social media as an extension of their fellowship and outreach. It has intrigued me to see how churches are handling their digital offering, so much so that I thought it might be worth giving some advice on such things.

There are lots of great posts already out there about what services there are and what can be achieved, this isn’t one of those posts. This is directed at church leaders and those that are making decisions about streaming .

In my years of church website design my approach is to stick to the KISS principal. KISS stands for Keep It Simple Stupid.

I have seen a lot of church streaming setups over the last week, cameras, computers, all kinds. Setup in churches, very fancy, very cool.

The problem with that is, at some point we will move to a time of not being able to get to our churches to use our fancy setup. My advice to the decision makers is to follow a KISS principal.

Don’t overthink it
Yes, there are loads of great tools out there, and it’s tempting to use the latest and greatest technology. The problem with this is at some point you will have to downscale your setup to accommodate the situation. The better thing to do, is to start small and build out from there. If you are streaming on premises at a church with all the gear, don’t. You’ll have to downscale that when the inevitable lockdown happens. Start small, start simple, and as you grow with confidence you can add things.

Enable your pastors
Your choice for streaming should be based around those who will be preaching. What is their level of technological understanding. At some point we will not be allowed into a church building and they will be in their house streaming the service themselves. Help them, come up with a setup they can use and continue to use for the next few months. The more people and steps you can take out of the process the more KISS it becomes. At this moment in time, simple trumps fancy. If you do it now and slowly upscale you won’t need to downsize the incredible setup you had before. Do it now!

Enable your church
This time is a great opportunity not only for the church leaders to have a voice on social media but also for the church as a whole. What things can you encourage them to be involved in the churches online voice? User generated content will serve you well during this time. In a future post I’ll suggest some ideas of things you could encourage the church to do during this time.

But mainly, follow the KISS principal