Unsplash.com; Jazmin Quaynor
Most churches now are using video elements of some sort in their weekly church services.
Whether it’s for pre-service announcements, sermon illustrations, or live camera shots, these churches are embracing the impact that can come to an audience when using multimedia to help communicate information or create an experience.
However, the vision behind using any type of video engagement shouldn’t be limited to “it looks cool” or “the big, trendy church down the street is doing it so we should too.”
... the vision behind using any type of video engagement shouldn’t be limited to “it looks cool” or “the big, trendy church down the street is doing it so we should too.”
Any decision that impacts a worship environment should have clear vision attached for the purpose and impact behind that decision, and using video elements is no different.
When weighing whether or not to begin using video elements in a service, or to start using more of them, here are five key questions to ask:
1-Does it enhance or distract?
This is probably the most common question that everyone asks, and unfortunately, it rarely has a cut-and-dry answer.
In theory, the usage of any video element in a service should have a clear tie-in to the content being communicated and should help enhance the emotion or the atmosphere in the room.
When attendees leave the service, I want them to be talking about the content itself, not necessarily the technology behind it. But in many cases, how the content is packaged has a clear impact on how much of the content is retained.
These ideas all come to a head when addressing two hot-button topics: special events (like Christmas) that may have more theatrical or technological emphasis than a typical Sunday service, and the usage of live cameras in the room for image magnification (IMAG) purposes.
There is definite merit to the thought that a church experience should have less of a video impact, and that too much technology can glamorize the stage talent or make it feel like a show. And on the flip side, there is just as much justification for having highly utilized technology in a service environment (disclaimer: my church leans more in this direction).
Every church is different, and there’s nothing wrong with that. As an example, our pastor prefers that we not use roaming/handheld cameras on stage during our services, because he feels that would be a distraction to the congregants. But at the same time, there are plenty of other churches that have different vision and use cameras on stage all the time to help create energy during worship.
At the end of the day, it all comes back to vision. Why are we doing this, and what is the goal?
At the end of the day, it all comes back to vision. Why are we doing this, and what is the goal? Whether we are using a lot of video support or none at all, are we doing it because we feel that it’s our most effective way of supporting the vision of our church?
2-How does it affect the end-user experience?
This was a critical discussion item for our church a few years ago when debriefing our annual Christmas services.
As a multi-site church, our campuses have a mixture of live elements (done locally) and video elements (broadcast from the main campus). But what we had realized was that when designing the programming of the service, it was mostly done from the perspective of the broadcast campus and what people would experience there. Less attention was put into what it would feel like at the outlying location.
As a result, we had created an experience that was great at the main campus, but not-so-great at the others. When those campuses finished their live worship set at the beginning of the service, they transitioned to a lengthy video package that included special elements and the sermon itself. The creative elements on the video were great, but it was disengaging for those campuses because they were locked into watching those experiences on a screen, and it was too long to sit without anything happening live in their room.
So, we made a conscious effort to reprogram our Christmas services because of that. Now, if there’s a special creative element that will be broadcast out globally, we work to ensure that we are also incorporating live elements at the campuses before and after the video package to help break up the flow and keep people engaged.
This is just one example of a way that the end-user perspective must be considered when programming events.
3-Does it engage or disconnect the attendees?
Again, another consideration especially for multi-site churches. Occasionally, we have visiting speakers that want to use their own content during the service, and they may want to refer to full-screen slides that have information on them.
That can work in our broadcast room, because we have multiple screens and can still show that content as well as camera shots of the presenter. But for our campuses, they would only be able to see the full-screen slide.
That can create a disconnect, because they’ve now gone from seeing the speaker close-up to now seeing a full-screen presentation, and with some speakers, there’s no telling how long they want their content on screen.
So instead of allowing this to disengage our campus audience, we will often request a speaker’s content ahead of time. This means we can potentially reformat it as a lower-third graphic (to key over a camera shot), or we can reformat the graphic so we can insert a picture-in-picture camera shot on top.
For rooms that are much deeper/longer (probably at least 80-100 feet between the stage and the last row of seats), there can be benefit for adding cameras so that those at the back of the room can clearly see those on stage.
The idea of engagement is also where the concept of IMAG camera shots can have the greatest benefit in a room. For rooms that are much deeper/longer (probably at least 80-100 feet between the stage and the last row of seats), there can be benefit for adding cameras so that those at the back of the room can clearly see those on stage.
This allows for engagement with and attachment to the emotions of those folks on stage, and helps the attendees become more connected to them personally, whether during worship or the message.
4-Can you measure its effectiveness?
I think pretty much every ministry feels that if it only had a video to promote its next event, that would solve all their problems and attendance would go through the roof!
It helps to have some system in place to determine why video is used during a service and whether it’s worth doing again.
This could be done with just grass-roots polling by asking people for feedback and what they remember, or can be done factually (whether registrations for an event actually increase on days it has a special video announcement). But at some level, there should be a determination made as to whether it’s working, it has the desired impact, and it’s worth doing again.
... at some level, there should be a determination made as to whether [a chosen video element is] working, it has the desired impact, and it’s worth doing again.
As an example, if people are consistently milling around and talking during your announcement videos, does that hurt their effectiveness, and should consideration be made for moving those announcements to another part of the service where people may be more attentive?
Churches can often fall victim to the “lather, rinse, repeat” cycle of ministry where certain actions are repeated just because that’s how things have always been done. But at some point, there must be a critical conversation to ask questions about whether things are really working.
Churches can often fall victim to the “lather, rinse, repeat” cycle of ministry where certain actions are repeated just because that’s how things have always been done.
5-Is it visitor-friendly?
In theory, the root goal of any church experience is to engage visitors so they feel comfortable enough to come back.
However, for many of us, it can become easy to cater our programming (and especially the language we use) to those already on the “inside”.
If I’m a brand-new, first-time guest, do I have appropriate context to understand what is being talked about in an announcement video, and do I know how it can impact me directly? Or, do we script our videos based on how we, as “church-folk”, would understand them?
And from a general standpoint, have we fallen so in love with a certain type of programming (either too much or too little use of video) that our members prefer but makes it difficult for visitors to connect with because it doesn’t feel relevant or applicable to them?
Any programming decision should always be made with clear vision involved. And any church team should be comfortable and willing enough to sit down regularly to debrief programming and weigh its effectiveness.
As times change, our methods should be flexible enough to change too.
As times change, our methods should be flexible enough to change too. We should be in love with the message of salvation and the vision to share it, but not necessarily married to having to always do that a certain way. Vision should never change, but processes sometimes should.
Don’t be afraid to ask questions. You’ll get better as a result.
