How to Make Your Online Church Video Streaming Effective
Phil Cooke
I received an interesting note from Joe Hayes, head of the TV and video ministry at Redemption World Outreach Center in Greenville, S.C. At Redemption, the Sunday online worship service is succeeding way beyond expectations.
Since so many churches have an online video feed of their live service on Sunday—and yet very few do it
well—here are four tips from Joe that might help:
1. Consider it just as important as your live event. Don’t do an online, streaming feed and treat the viewers
like second-class citizens. Make sure it’s as high quality as you can afford, and make it available and easy to find.
2. Understand the online experience is different from the live service. In the live service, people are
sitting with a large group. They can feel the excitement and see the preacher sweat, and it’s a visceral,
physical experience. But with the online service, people are watching on a small screen, usually from across the room. They’re also probably distracted. So shoot more closeups, and make sure the audience has plenty of microphones. You want the people at home to feel the power of the service.
3. Consider calling the online service “iChurch.” This is what the Redemption communications team does. They treat people that watch online just like members of the congregation.
4. Talk to the “iChurch” congregation directly. For instance, Joe says that once they explained to the
streaming audience how to give online, it literally doubled the financial response.
Why they watch doesn’t matter as much as how much you welcome them. They can learn, participate in worship and support you financially. It’s time you took your online congregation seriously.
Phil Cooke is a filmmaker, media critic and adviser to some of the largest churches, ministries and nonprofit organizations in the world. He’s the founder of the Influence Lab.
The above article, “How to Make Your Online Church Video Streaming Effective” is written by Phil Cooke. The article was excerpted from www.philcooke.com web site. December 2013.
The material is most likely copyrighted and should not be reprinted under any other name or author. However, this material may be freely used for personal study or research purposes.
This article may not be written by an Apostolic author, but it contains many excellent principles and concepts that can be adapted to most churches. As the old saying goes, “Eat the meat. Throw away the bones.”
