Streaming video over the Internet unlocks a remarkable opportunity for churches to expand their reach into the community. Like many other technology tools, online video is a powerful instrument for church leaders to do more with fewer resources—and the online opportunity is growing daily. As more and more members of congregations make Internet media a part of their lives, expanding a ministry with online video is no longer a case of leaving the ninety and nine in search of the one.
Thankfully, while streaming is a highly technical topic, it doesn't have to be unnecessarily complex.
You may be a newcomer to the art and science of online media, or your church may already have a well-executed Internet media strategy—if the latter, you should benefit from some of the ideas we suggest for special content and programs. And if you are relatively new to streaming video online, or just want to freshen up your approach to online media, we hope you also find his article edifying. You can get started with nothing more than a bit of time and a few hundred dollars' worth of equipment, some of which you probably already own.
Case in point: United Methodist Church of the Resurrection
But first, let's put things in perspective: One of the largest American churches in the Methodist denomination, the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection, serves a congregation of more than 16,000 at its four physical campuses in Missouri, Kansas, and through its online ministry. From humble beginnings—a live webcast of Easter services in 2007, which attracted an online congregation of nearly 200—the church steadily refined its online streaming services until by Easter of 2009, the number of online participants reached 1,600. At Christmas that same year, a blizzard shut down much of the Midwest, making it difficult for many of the faithful to attend services. As a result, the webcast audience grew to over 3,500, including not only members of United Methodist, but also people from other churches elsewhere that canceled their own worship services. Since the day of the blizzard, online viewership has not faltered, and today makes up an average of 15% of the total weekly attendance.
The church is able to deliver live services and on-demand events to computer screens and many other types of devices that are connected to the Internet. “Even small screens achieve a positive impact with viewers,” says Ian Beyer, online campus technical director for the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection. “We became one of the first churches to make our sermons available on mobile devices, such as the iPhone and iPod.”
What does this church have in common with yours? Its leaders started with a very simple set-up, much like the one described in this write up, and tested the system on a very small scale before expanding their streaming video presence to meaningfully reach the congregation.
Online video busts through barriers
The popularity of live online video continues to rise. According to Sudhir Kaushik, director of products, insights and optimization at Ooyala in Mountain View, Calif., “Congregations are tuning in for longer and longer periods of time. When you consider all the different kinds of online video, on average, viewers are watching live video online 13 times longer than they did last year.” Kaushik, a member of Ooyala's Data Science team, is responsible for analyzing how everyday people relate to video and build long-term habits around it. He suggests that houses of worship offer their congregations as much opportunity as possible to embrace video, particularly on mobile devices such as phones and tablets. “Just in the first three months of 2013, tablet and mobile video broke new records, and accounted for more than 10% of all online videos that were played, anywhere,” he adds.
Streaming a Sunday worship service allows the members of a congregation to share meaningful spiritual experiences with family and friends who are far away. By reducing or eliminating the issue of physical distance, church leaders can touch the lives of many individuals, including:
Members recovering from illness or an operation who are confined to their homes
Snowbirds needing to stay connected to their favorite congregation throughout the year
Members who are out-of-town for vacation or business
Youth who are away at college and need a familiar spiritual connection
Older members who are no longer able to make it to worship services every week
Far-flung missionaries who need to gather strength from their home congregation
… make sure you capture the most important audio first—the pastor’s message. Isolate the audio feed from the pastor’s microphone and take that feed directly to your mixing board or streaming.
While nearly all churches start by streaming regular Sunday services, very few stream additional messages. This is surprising, considering that churches reach out to their communities in so many other meaningful ways. Consider the tremendous positive impact your church might have by providing a live stream or an on-demand video podcast on these topics:
Financial management
Marriage preparation
Addiction recovery
Fellowship of new members
Special events in the members' lives are ideal for sharing with loved ones over an online video stream, including baptisms, confirmations, musical presentations, children's pageants, special recognitions, Boy Scouts' courts of honor, presentation of new church leaders, and weddings.
There's always additional material from a sermon that the pastor was not able to include due to time limitations. Sharing this bonus material on a streaming video can provide added depth to a Sunday service, allow a church leader to expand the same message thread on days other than Sunday, and help members remember the original message that was given. Music leaders can provide a “behind the scenes” message, sharing uplifting info regarding the music they selected—the background story, how it relates to the other aspects of the devotional service, and how the members might apply its inspiration to their lives.
How to start streaming
To get started streaming, churches need a few basics. It is true that apps for the iPhone, iPad, and handheld Android devices can turn your smart phone into something of a miniature studio, with a camera, a microphone, and a video encoder all in the palm of your hand, but smartphones were never designed with high-quality video streaming in mind. A starter system with a few additional components will provide a greater amount of control and a higher level of overall quality.
Assuming your church is on a tight budget, your starter system should include the following:
A web-based camera with a USB output—Using a simple digital point-and-shoot to record video won't work here—almost all consumer cameras and DSLRs have time limits, some as low as 12 minutes. At the very least, you need a low-cost, fixed HD webcam that will connect to your computer with a USB cable.
Microsoft's LifeCam ($50) or Logitech's HD Pro Webcam C910 ($160) can work for small venues. Larger churches require larger cameras, and at that camera size churches should choose to go with a full camcorder or a remote controlled pan/tilt/zoom camera, both of which can cost between $1,800 and $4,000 on the low end, and need additional equipment to manage the video signals they produce.
A reliable Internet connection—DSL, cable, or a T-1 line is typically fine for live sermon streaming, but keep in mind that the most important aspect of your bandwidth is the upstream: your connection needs to support between 360-500 Kbps of upload. As a backup, in case the primary connection goes down, some churches use mobile hot-spot technology on a smartphone or a standalone wireless device. Standalone wireless hotspot technology can be had for as low as $35 per month.
A computer with a USB port for a camera and an input for an external microphone—Both Mac and PC computers work well for basic video processing, as long as they have at minimum the following specifications:
A quad-core Intel Core I7, available in most consumer-grade computers
8 gigabytes of RAM
A 500-gigabyte hard drive
An NVIDIA GTX670 graphics card
A word about audio quality
Churches that are just starting an Internet outreach should focus first on audio quality. Great video is nothing without high-quality audio, and getting good audio is easier for the beginner than achieving good video. While your camera may have a built-in microphone, your online congregation will greatly benefit from a high-quality audio stream, particularly for musical numbers. However, make sure you capture the most important audio first—the pastor's message. Isolate the audio feed from the pastor's microphone and take that feed directly to your mixing board or streaming computer. Once you have the pastor's voice, you can supplement that by placing other microphones and adding audio feeds for the music sources and other presenters. For ambience, many churches also include an audio feed of the congregation on a separate audio channel with its own volume control.
Once your computer can see and hear whatever is showing on your video camera or webcam, you are nearly ready (keeping in mind these additional considerations):
A website – Your congregation will need a place to look for your online worship services.
Video encoding software – Before your video can be sent out on the Internet, its audio and video need to be combined and encoded into a stream. Many paid and free distribution systems, discussed below, take care of this as part of their offering. Several use Adobe's Flash Media Live Encoder, a free, downloadable program for Microsoft Windows and Mac OS.
A basic video distribution system – Getting your video online can be accomplished in a variety of ways. If your church is a qualified nonprofit, you can create a YouTube channel and stream live, encoded video to an unlimited audience for up to four hours straight. Other free streaming providers include Livestream, Justin.tv and Ustream; take note that most of these free solutions will place advertisements on your stream, and remove them for a monthly or hour-based usage fee. These providers allow you to download software or use web-based software to broadcast.
There are other companies that offer paid distribution services specifically to churches looking to broadcast online. These typically charge a flat monthly fee and bundle other services into their offering, such as mobile viewing applications, online newsletters, a member directory, donation links, and an on-demand library of your church's videos. A few of these companies include StreamingChurch, ChristianWorldMedia, Lightcast, and Streaming Media Hosting.
All the providers integrate with your existing website; many even provide additional web page and a front-end player that mimics the look and feel of your
website. Churches should consider taking advantage of free provider software and service trials.
A step beyond the basics
A word on multiple camera angles: If you decide to use multiple cameras angles, you'll need a video switcher to shift smoothly between camera angles. Hardware switchers are incredibly simple to use and can be purchased for under $50 on the low end. Software video switchers are computer programs, such as Telestream Wirecast (starting at $499), and provide much more functionality than hardware switchers in the same price range. Software switchers can switch between multiple high definition and standard definition feeds, create and overlay titles, use green screen video to create a virtual set, and add videos from hard disks or other connected computers—all features unavailable on inexpensive hardware switchers. Software switchers such as Wirecast can also output a compressed stream to your live streaming service provider so you won't need a separate encoding station.
Bear in mind that video files can be very large, up to one gigabyte per hour of full HD video. For video storage, you may want to add in a one-terabyte external hard drive, though this depends on what you choose do with your videos in the future. You might also partner with an online video distribution company that provides video storage on the Internet.
