Greek philosopher Aristotle has often been credited as the first to muse that, “The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.” In essence, he was remarking that when certain ingredients are combined together, they form a creation that exceeds the quality and value that its individual components could ever achieve.
A car, for example, isn’t just a collection of plastic, rubber, and metal; it’s much more than that. A team isn’t just a collection of people with varying skills and abilities; it’s able to achieve much more as a unit.
But is Aristotle’s hypothesis still true when considering a church’s online stream? Is the final product greater than the parts used to form it?
Regardless of an individual church’s vision towards its streaming ministry, there tends to be a unified industry belief that the quality of the experience is the front door for greater engagement.
The Coronavirus pandemic forced many churches to embrace the value of an online presence, and many of those same churches also had to confront the fact that they needed to improve their technology to make their digital platform more appealing. In that case, just like the world of mathematics (where 1+1=2), the sum was exactly equal with its parts: the parts were low-quality, and the end product was as well. And regardless of an individual church’s vision towards its streaming ministry, there tends to be a unified industry belief that the quality of the experience is the front door for greater engagement.
Tools worthy of the mission
“We initially viewed online streaming as a way for our church members to stay connected when they are sick or out of town,” says Brandon Headley, the production director at Hunter Street Baptist Church (HSBC) since 2013. “We prioritize being gathered in person, but we have realized that online streaming is another way for people to figure out who we are before they physically step foot on campus.”
He adds, “Now they can try out Hunter Street before they walk in the doors,” he adds.
A single-site church in Birmingham, Alabama, Hunter Street was experiencing a rapid decline in its video system’s technology as recent as 2019, resulting in a less-than-desirable impression for those engaging online.
“Our staff knew that our system was very outdated and we were weekly barely making it through a service,” Headley says, before noting that at times, the production team would only have one or two functioning cameras (out of four) for a service.
Fortunately for Headley and his team, a planned upgrade began in the fall of 2019 and was completed literally weeks before the COVID shutdown in the spring of 2020. As all of the church’s services were forced to shift to an online-only format, it was a blessing that the project was completed when it was.
By overhauling the video system and adding more cameras (eight regularly set up with the ability to integrate up to four more), along with restructuring some of the team to better define roles and responsibilities pertaining to managing the live stream, HSBC has been able to completely overhaul how they accomplish live streaming.
“Now that we have a reliable video system and a staff that is better equipped to handle things, we do more livestreaming for events other than Sunday mornings,” Headley notes. “We can support anything that happens in our worship center with about an hour notice, and we can produce a high-quality video production with our team and our gear with very little effort,” he adds.
Vision alignment and budget constraints
For Nashville, Tennessee’s Brentwood Baptist Church, a similar vision exists for its online ministry.
“We aim to put our best foot forward with whatever video content goes online, as the live stream (or video-on-demand) is usually the first experience with our church a guest has before they ever come to a service in person,” says Brentwood Media Director Adam Dye. “That said,” he continues, “our end goal is still for people to attend in person, so our online services are not necessarily treated as an online campus.”
Eight unique campuses (at Nashville’s Brentwood Baptist Church) means not only eight different “broadcast” locations, but also eight very different budgets from which to pull resources.
Brentwood is considered a multi-site church, with eight locations in central Tennessee, but each of the locations functions autonomously on Sundays, with a local communicator and each location being responsible for its own live stream.
While this does help every site create its own unique footprint within the local community, it also leads to its own set of challenges. Eight unique campuses means not only eight different “broadcast” locations, but also eight very different budgets from which to pull resources.
Dye’s goal for Brentwood’s campus streams is that they “get to a point where what people see on a screen at home is an extremely accurate representation of what happens at our church on Sunday mornings.”
Unfortunately, as many other ministries may be well aware, there can often be quite a lengthy journey involved in making necessary system improvements to get to that point.
The added factor of physical logistics—and gear
Some churches’ facilities may not allow for centerline camera positions that can capture an eye-level view of the speaker, and some teams may not have the depth to allow for multiple manned cameras. Others may not have the budget margin to afford broadcast-quality lenses on their cameras or to install a new video switcher that allows for a multi-camera line cut.
However, it is still crucial for each ministry to identify potential areas of improvement if it endeavors to make the sum quality of the online experience to be greater than its parts.
It may not necessarily be something earth-shattering; in fact, for some of the Brentwood locations, one of the most critical early steps was simply investing in new presentation software that allowed them to key song lyrics over their video feed so online viewers could sing along during worship.
In addition, the biggest step of improvement may not even be something that’s technically video-related, but instead deals more with lighting.
“Stage lighting is easy to overlook when considering streaming, because video has a totally different set of demands on stage lighting than the live service in the room does,” Dye cautions. “The in-person congregation’s eyes are so much more forgiving than your cameras are, so color correcting fixtures and spending time chipping (white- and black-balancing) your cameras can make a big impact to ensure skin tones look natural on video,” he adds.
Andy Bentley, the broadcast support engineer at Elevation Church, one of the nation’s largest megachurches, agrees.
“I’m sure there are plenty of people out there who think they need new cameras, when in reality they just need better lighting,” Bentley states. “To be honest, we do have really good cameras, and they can still look like garbage if our lighting is bad.”
Based in Charlotte, North Carolina, Elevation has long been recognized as a leader in creating dynamic weekend experiences through cutting-edge technology and creative worship expression. However, just like with any other ministry, it all comes down to some basic benchmarks for defining how quality and growth of its online broadcasts can be sustained. And that answer begins with one word: scalability.
The vital element of scalability
“Scalability is key,” Bentley insists. “And the further towards the center of your signal chain you get, the more you should plan for the future. It’s a fine balance, but don’t build the system only for what you need now. Be forward-thinking.”
He continues, “With ministry, the only constant is change, so we just have to evaluate every ask on a case-by-case basis. The answer is never ‘we can’t do that,’ but it’s ‘here’s what it will take to do that,’ and from there we can all decide if it’s worth pursuing.”
“To be honest, we do have really good cameras, and they can still look like garbage if our lighting is bad.”
Andy Bentley, Broadcast Support Engineer, Elevation Church, Charlotte, NC
So, technology notwithstanding, perhaps the most important item in the signal chain is actually vision. Without vision, there’s no clear picture for how and where to scale, which means there’s no clarity regarding technology purchases and paths for improvement.
If there’s no clear goal, then there’s no ability to evaluate effectiveness or value, and streaming online becomes simply just something that a church does because that’s what they’ve always done, or because that’s what the church down the street does, or trendy Instagram Church X does.
It all boils down to effectiveness. What’s the best way for a ministry to share the Gospel and fulfill the vision its leaders have for reaching their community? And are the right tools in place to do that as effectively and efficiently as possible? Developing that roadmap becomes the only way to ensure that the whole sum of the components actually does become greater than the individual parts of the process.
Maybe the goal is like that of Hunter Street, which hopes to present an engaging online platform so that viewers are compelled to visit in person and ultimately become part of the fabric of the church community.
Maybe the goal is like that of Brentwood, where enough technological hurdles have been removed so that the online experience is of such a high quality that it feels comparable to attending in person and feeling enveloped by the atmosphere there.
Or, perhaps the goal becomes what Elevation’s Bentley sees as a potential future: making the online experience less about the technological quality of the experience and more about the level of engagement that can be created.
“For those that do decide to continue streaming, “ Bentley reminds, “they will need to start focusing less on how good the stream looks, and really take engagement and content seriously. The technology should never take priority over the content, and we have the greatest content in the world in the Gospel.”
