We livestream and have encountered all the obstacles you covered. As a small to medium sized church, it's difficult to produce a quality livestream and while it's not about making it a "show" it does result in people watching having a more difficult time connecting with what God is doing through our service. We do feel the need to continue doing it mostly for members of our church that have moved and still tune/contribute to our ministries (or those who are sick and cannot physically attend) and we want to continue to be a home for them, but we do struggle to make it a good virtual experience. COVID forced us into creating a livestream for everyone to access and now it's a leftover service that we are trying to keep afloat.
We totally get that "Need to continue doing it for members..." It's always hard to pull the plug on a ministry because there are always anecdotes of people who are impacted. In the end, we think that Video on Demand will fulfill almost all of what members are looking for. Praying you guys make the right decision for your church!
We don't get many during the livestream, true. However, we use the video created during the livestream to create shorts or reels (name your platform). And, we are creating the livestream with a tablet and three cameras wall mounted cameras. It isn't a production for ABC or FOX sports. However, I can create wonderful, vertical, videos of less than one minute length by editing in Adobe Express. We use the same videos for shorts as reels, hence the less than a minute length. I watched a short on RU-vid from last Sunday's sermon get 80 views in about 30 minutes, with a couple reactions. So, that live video is being put to good use.
We love that you are making good use of the video you are livestreaming! We are 100% for churches capturing video of their services. The question is, how much time and money are you investing in the live stream portion. For most churches, capturing the video is the easy part... producing a quailty livestream is where church might be where churches are investing too heavily.
@@reachright Did I say we were producing a broadcast quality livestream? - 3 Mevo cameras (thinking of a 4th), networked using wifi. - 1 cheapest Samsung tablet that the church bought (however, my cheaper still Lenovo has been used for the livecast). - Use the church's wifi (but it helps someone is a network engineer and set up a wifi channel exclusive for livecasting). - Free Mevo software for tablet to run the livecast. - Free Adobe Express software (because we are an IRS nonprofit organization) to create the reels/shorts. I was running the tablet and organist last Sunday. Do I change shots during a hymn? Obviously not. You don't need to. Can I zoom to see the number of pores on the preacher's nose? No, but that isn't necessary to create vertical shorts later. The vertical shorts do not have to be professional quality. Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good enough. This shorts had over 80 views within 3 hours Sunday evening. It is from a sermon from our in-training intern. ru-vid.com2OvwjLXfN2Q?feature=share
Interesting take in 2024 for churches. I am thinking the same thing to do with my church; should we live stream, invest in all this equipment and gear , or do like you mentioned, make videos on demand and make it more engaging on the socials. I do believe that in this day and age, one needs to have some sort of online presence. Which one gives more bang for a buck?
You are so right! You need to be online. And the biggest cost to live streaming is the people. It takes an army of volunteers to do it well. Most churches are better off focusing on video on demand.
Someone please explain to me why, in 2024, the churches are still online, but none of them ever answer a phone and rarely return a phone call? I get it maybe they can’t pay a secretary to sit at a desk all week (apparently they used to just fine) but everyone has a cell phone and there’s forwarding and you can cut it off after business hours to take a break. They just all seem fundamentally not functioning anymore. If you can’t even speak to someone outside of Sunday service, it’s not really a church now, is it?
Great compelling case. I've been thinking about this for our church too. We needed to invest in some equipment for the COVID-19 pandemic shut-down period, but now we are seeing way more people come back to church-- and our "live" views are quite minimal-- it's the "on demand" views that are still healthy. Why not quit stressing over Sunday live broadcasts, and perhaps create a video catered to those who will watch it later anyway!
We’ve been streaming. Quality is never great. Production team of 1-2 people are stressed weekly! Same viewers. Been seeing even bigger churches going back to podcasts and no live. May pivot back. Great video.
