Get your church online this weekend
We’ve been getting a handful of questions about how to get your church services online in the quickest, cheapest way possible. So I wanted to send out this quick guide to help any church with any budget get online.
I know all this can be pretty daunting...
God called you to be a pastor not a techie, right?
If you’d like to come to our Avon, MA location (101 Wales Ave, Avon, MA) and record your message with high quality video and audio just let us know and we’ll help you get it done!
Please email me Brian@ThatsGrace.org.
Cheapest fastest LIVE option
Facebook Live from your cell phone or computer is the quickest, cheapest way to go. The quality won’t be great but you can get up and running in a few minutes. I would recommend that you go live from your churches Facebook page and not your personal account. It should be one of the 3 types of posts... Photo, Camera, LIVE.
Fast but NOT live option
You can prerecord your message from your computer using free software like https://wistia.com/soapbox this would allow you to split the screen so you could have your camera and your notes or verses. Then simply upload the video to facebook, youtube, vimeo or your website. If you’re feeling super ambitious you could even use https://churchonlineplatform.com/ and here is a tutorial https://support.churchonlineplatform.com/article/vd0luk51c8-adding-embed-from-youtube-or-vimeo-for-simulated-live
Free with more options but more setup
Use a professional camera with OBS software to stream live or simulated live services. With OBS you can use a prerecorded video and broadcast it LIVE on Facebook at any time. OBS is a free software but sometimes the quality is not that good. We used this software at grace for about 2 years and wrote about it in more depth in this post, we also cover a few of the cameras and other equipment we use. http://www.521pastors.com/how-we-run-our-facebook-live-service
Paid streaming services
This is an option but will take several weeks to setup and cost $100-$200 per month plus any hardware/setup fees there might be. The quality is much better and the features are also much better. We recommend https://livingasone.com/ if this is something you’d be interested in. Our setup took about 2 weeks. We paid $1500 for setup, and we’re paying $100/mo.
PRO TIPS
Bring it ALL online. If your sermon has any takeaways, action steps or further resourcing make sure to put all that online and clearly communicate how to access those materials. Use one single URL for all your church online resources. YourChurch.org/online is a good memorable URL.
Create a prayer form so people can submit prayer requests online. The easiest way would be to setup a google form with their name, email and prayer request.
Create “Host” accounts on Facebook. We’ve created fake host accounts for our facebook live hosts. It sets them apart, lets people know they are a host and removes any personal info about them. Here are a few examples. https://www.facebook.com/grace.essence.31?ref=br_rs https://www.facebook.com/gracechurch.rickson.9?ref=br_rs
Engage the online audience. Ask for comments, likes, shares throughout the message. This will help them feel like they are a part of the teaching and not just watching from home.
I hope this is helpful. If there is anything else we can do to help you or your team just let me know!
Brian Beauford is the executive pastor of Grace Church in Avon, MA, and the director of 521Pastors.