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In general, Christians tend to be a law-abiding group. After all, Romans 13 talks all about how we should obey the governing authorities. Still, there are, as there always are, exceptions. The author of that very passage was executed for NOT obeying the governing authorities of Rome who said that citizens weren’t allowed to practice “new” religions, like Christianity. So, it should come as no surprise that while we tend to follow the laws, sometimes, we have to resist laws that say we shouldn’t talk about or practice our faith.
This is, in fact, one of the reasons that sometimes you shouldn’t live-stream. The advantage of live-streaming over broadcast or even cable television is reach. This is also the downside of live-streaming your church service when you have a missionary or indigenous pastor in from a closed country.
The advantage of live-streaming over broadcast or even cable television is reach. This is also the downside of live-streaming....
Now, with live-streaming, anyone with an Internet connection can see your church services. Sure, the chances of someone seeing it are still pretty small because of the mass of content online, but churches are actively trying to increase those chances. Maybe your church live-streams to Facebook or YouTube specifically because you want to increase the chances that you’ll be found. Some churches are using ads and SEO practices to do the same.
This isn’t the only reason why you might not want to live-stream. Perhaps there’s a problem that your church has to deal with that’s more pressing. With hurricanes, nor’easters, earthquakes, power surges, and other unforeseen problems come challenges that might keep your church from live-streaming.
Additionally, you might run into problems that are both local and avoidable, but might feel like an invitation for controversy of the sort that you don’t want. If your pastor has a moral failure, if your church has widely publicized financial difficulties, or if you experience some other issue that Internet trolls might see as an opportunity to bully your online congregation, maybe you’d want to take a short break from live-streaming.
So, what do you do in these situations?
Make a plan before you need it
For normal weeks, you won’t need a plan, but what happens when the need arises? If you don’t have a plan, either someone will make a decision that you don’t want or they’ll make no decision at all and default to doing a live-stream that might cause problems. So start right now with what you want the outcome to be and take action so that’s what happens.
Consider your options
Are you going to just stop the live-stream mid-service? Are you not going to live-stream at all? Will you live-stream an alternate message? Will you live-stream an old sermon?
While you might think it’s distracting to talk about the “elephant in the room,” isn’t it more distracting to act like it doesn’t exist?
These all have validity as options. The first two are the easiest for you, but they might leave your online congregation feeling like second-class citizens. Imagine if you showed up at church and the ushers took you out of the room after worship and wouldn’t let you attend again until after the message was over. It’s the same thing, isn’t it? Or maybe you showed up at church and without prior knowledge the doors were locked and you couldn’t go in, but later you found out that they were having church, but you weren’t allowed in.
The last two are harder, but they take into account the needs of your online congregation. Imagine that you show up at church and there’s a message that doesn’t just feel like it was written for you, but it actually was. Maybe you missed a message a few weeks ago. If it’s a repeat, you might be happy to finally see it.
Communicate clearly
It might be tempting to just play a rerun and hope no one notices, but that’s not a good option either. Even if your intent isn’t to deceive, practically speaking, isn’t that what “hoping no one notices” is?
While you might think it’s distracting to talk about the “elephant in the room,” isn’t it more distracting to act like it doesn’t exist?
It’s better to just say, “We’ve got a speaker from a closed country in today, so for his safety, we’re not live-streaming, but instead, here’s a message you might have missed” or “here’s a message that our pastor recorded just for you.”
This is especially true if your church is hit with a natural disaster or has a human-made one. At the very least, leave a message saying why you’re not live-streaming in all the places people would normally find your live-stream. Everyone may not want to help, but some of them will and would feel left out if they couldn’t … somehow, especially knowing that their prayers could help, had they known how to pray.
At the very least, leave a message saying why you’re not live-streaming in all the places people would normally find your live-stream.
Evaluate how it went
There’s always room for improvement. So, how did you do? Did people come in late and wonder, in chat, why you were playing a prerecorded message? Did others show up and wonder why your pastor was preaching in a smaller room to only a handful of people? Did you get emails telling you that your live-stream wasn’t up as usual?
What can you do to address these things? Could you put up a crawl from time to time addressing concerns? Maybe you could add text to side telling people that the live-stream will be back next week and give the reasons that it’s not up this week.
Maybe you could add text to side telling people that the live-stream will be back next week and give the reasons that it’s not up this week.
Communicating early and often is the key here. You might even offer alternatives if the members of the online congregation don’t like what you’ve chosen. There are always options that can help you take care of people in the best way possible.
Continue to improve
Make sure you actually implement the ideas for getting better, adding them into your plan for next time. If your pastor doesn’t like to deliver a message to an empty room, consider inviting a few key leaders for the recording. If you don’t have a classic sermon pulled for emergencies, consider pulling one now. If you don’t have an easy way to add a message saying that the live-stream is down this week, but will be back, contact the people who can make that change and come up with options.
If you don’t have a classic sermon pulled for emergencies, consider pulling one now.
Some things you can anticipate, like a speaker coming in from overseas. Other things you can’t, like a snow storm that makes the roads impassible or a moral failing of a leader that’s revealed at the last minute.
Ignoring these things shouldn’t be the default. Like any ministry, live-streaming is a ministry that serves people and so it’s not only a joy, but also a responsibility. Treat the people you serve with it as though they matter and communicate with them and you’ll get better results than just treating the live-stream as an optional thing that you do or don’t do depending on circumstances that the online congregation is ignorant of.
Once again, the Golden Rule should be your guide here. How would you feel in the online congregation’s circumstance? Do what you can to help them understand and treat them as you’d want to be treated. Isn’t that what we all want?
