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Live Streaming for Churches

Churches and houses of worship bring people together through the combination of religion and community. It’s a place where people can find salvation and relief, especially during hard times.

Historically, tradition and word-of-mouth have been the way churches have expanded their reach. Today, modern technologies have created new options for getting church services out to those who wish to participate but are unable to attend a service in person.

Church live streaming services have brought the new potential for sharing masses, sermons, and other religious services and activities. As COVID-19 continues to spread, people cannot safely gather in large groups during this time of need, resulting in limited church services. Fortunately, it’s still possible to have sermons and gathering through live streaming software for churches.

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Church live streaming platforms let pastors and other church leaders broadcast their sermons remotely to people both near and far without anyone leaving the safety of their own homes. It also allows churches to broadcast special church activities, like weddings, baptisms and plays to everyone who wants to be there. Livestreaming is suited for many of the group activities that take place within a large church community.

In this article, we’ll discuss how churches can use church streaming services and how to live stream church services online. We will compare a few of the top church streaming services on the market based on price, features, and more.

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Benefits of Church Streaming Services

Broadcasting a religious service offers many benefits for churches like yours. When you stream and broadcast a church service with a streaming platform, you can reach people who could otherwise not make it to worship with the community.

This could be people who are homebound due to an illness or injury, or people who are too old to drive themselves. People with disabilities also benefit from streaming church services. Members who have moved away but still want to be part of the church community can maintain their connection. This is also particularly helpful during global crises, like COVID-19, which we’re currently experiencing.

Some other benefits of live streaming church services include:

  • Allow members who are sick or injured, too old to make it in person, or have a disability that makes it difficult to travel to watch your service.
  • Helps members who are traveling and want to continue to participate in their own faith community
  • Extends your reach beyond your local community and help people to connect with one another
  • Create a live stream of your sermon or broadcast a private event for members of your congregation who cannot attend
  • Record your live streams and make them available as video on demand. This is also a great way to lock in the experience of each event forever. It allows people who missed the live event to watch it later on in their own time.

It is also common to live stream church’s Christmas programs and other special events. This allows the congregation to attend from home.

Church Live Streaming Statistics

In the past few years, churches and other places of worship have been turning to over-the-top (OTT) live streaming technology to make services and events available over the internet. Here are a few streaming statistics and trends for why churches are opting to live stream virtual services in 2022:

This could be people who are homebound due to an illness or injury, or people who are too old to drive themselves. People with disabilities also benefit from streaming church services. Members who have moved away but still want to be part of the church community can maintain their connection. This is also particularly helpful during global crises, like COVID-19, which we’re currently experiencing.

  • Many churches are building online communities that could very well transition into in-person attendance, and 33% of churchgoers have found their current churches online, making live streaming for churches essential.
  • About 20% report that they have opted to view the service online rather than in-person, but they’ve only done this one or two times. 16% of these people say that they’ve opted for the online service three to five times, and about 14% have done it six or more times. That is still a significant number of people that you can reach through live streaming for churches.
  • Live streaming has allowed worshipers to simply turn on service on their phones, and 44% of people have said that they prefer to be alone while they pray and worship. This allows users to experience the structure of religious service from wherever they’re most comfortable, as opposed to in the traditional church setting. Chuch livestreaming allows you to reach individuals who wouldn’t otherwise show up in person.
  • People feel more comfortable making payments online, and reports show that over $2.2 billion worth of donations have been made in a single year’s time. You can set up donations through the platform you use to live stream your church services.
  • When it comes to live streaming vs in-person worshipping, 47% of people did not abandon in-person services for virtual alternatives

We’ve created this step-by-step how-to guide for you about how live streaming of church services works. While it may seem overwhelming to figure out how to get your Sunday service online quickly, we’re here to help you. Please follow this church services live streaming tutorial to set everything up correctly.

1. Make a Plan

Start with a road map of where you are now and where you want to be. Take note if you already have church live streaming equipment available and what type of new video equipment you’d like to invest in.

Consider where you want to stream your sermon. What sort of features do you need to make this happen? This will determine the platform you end up using to live stream the church service.

2. Choose a Church Streaming Service

A reliable church streaming service is essential for hosting a professional-grade live stream. You will likely want a church streaming service that includes the following features:

  • White-label HTML5 video player
  • Customizable and brandable
  • Supports multi-destination streaming
  • Advanced video analytics
  • Powerful security tools
  • Robust content management system
  • Easy to use interface

In addition to checking all of these boxes, you’re going to want to choose a church live streaming solution that fits your budget.

3. Prepare Your Setup

The success of a live stream starts with the setup. Choose a camera based on workflow requirements. Set up your camera with the view you want people tuning in to see.

Next, choose a video encoder. An encoder takes your video signal and converts it to a stream of data that can be sent over the internet. These are essential additions to live broadcast software for churches that you can use for encoding, but for the best quality, use dedicated encoding hardware.

Work on your lighting. When you work on your lighting within the church, your live stream will have a better quality picture for those watching. Use a separate mix for your audio live stream by using an Aux mix output. Then you can mix it remotely for a better audio feed. This will ensure that you are able to provide viewers with a quality church live stream.

4. Test Everything

Do a test run to make sure that your live streaming setup is ready to go. It is better to catch any snags in the system before you’re live in front of an audience.

Check your internet speed to make sure that it is fast enough to stream. It is recommended that your upload speed is double the speed that you plan to stream with.

At this stage, we also recommend ensuring that you have the licenses that allow you to stream the copyrighted music that you’re streaming.

5. Start Streaming

Once everything is set up and working smoothly, it is time to get started. Create the stream, get the cameras rolling, and start streaming.

For more information, check out our series of videos dedicated to live streaming your church services.

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