Just a year ago, most church services were online only. The dramatic shift to online church was not planned; it was in reaction to a health crisis of pandemic proportions. As the crisis unfolded and church doors closed to live worship, some churches were more prepared than others, having made forays into digital worship. Some were even well invested in online campuses. Some churches, though, were seriously behind the eight ball. They found themselves caught short on video resources and suddenly plunged into a new world of cameras, microphones, and streaming providers to learn as quickly as they could.
In the end, we all learned and church happened. Now that our church doors are open again, a hybrid model for church has emerged to support both live worship and a growing community of online worshippers. To get a handle on where it’s all heading, Church Production talked to some technical production leaders on the front lines.
Pivot to online
When the pandemic hit, our church leaders looked to production teams to find new ways to keep church families informed, connected, and engaged. Phillip Braddock, central lighting director at Church of the King in Louisiana, recalls the challenge. “Our teams that had made church productions happen inside the church doors had to do a pivot to online,” he remembers.
Expect that any part of a production could become online content.
Having a video studio set up at Church of the King’s main broadcast campus at Little Creek in Mandeville, Louisiana, and a broadcast infrastructure already in place put Braddock’s church ahead of many trying to produce online content, but the church’s commitment to excellence drove the team to improve broadcasts specifically for online viewers. “It’s so often the detail that shows up when doing video, that needs attention,” he notes, “and we found lots of places to improve.” Where the studio continued to work well for introductions, announcements, and teaching, the stage that Little Creek used for live segments appeared less impressive on video. Braddock worked across teams to improve sets and lighting, including the calibration of back and key lighting temperatures to match cameras. In addition, video panels were strategically relocated on stage to present more realistic depth when viewed online.
Braddock can recount many lessons learned from the experience of moving focus to online, but the shift has produced some major tenets to which his teams will adhere going forward. The first is to expect that any part of a production could become online content. “Everything we do from now on will be video friendly,” he says, “because it might be used online. Similarly, all production designs should have broadcast in mind and be broadcast ready.” But perhaps the most important lesson from Church of the King’s treatment of online is recognizing that online worshippers need the same things that live attendees need, though they might look very different.
To that end, Braddock works closely with Pastor Simon Andersson who has unique responsibilities as the church’s online campus pastor. “As they would for a physical campus,” notes Braddock, “an online pastor leads teams of volunteers and attends to pastoral components of online worship. That person oversees filming, coaching, online content, as well as looking at analytics to determine what is most successful online and what needs work—he bridges the gap.”
“You can disciple people without meeting in person—I’ve seen it work. It really boils down to relationships and discovering how best to do that digitally.”
—Simon Andersson, Online Campus Pastor, Church of the King, Mandeville, LA
Shaping the online service
According to Church of the King’s online campus pastor, Simon Andersson, the attitude of the church has a lot to do with how online worship there will evolve. “Many churches have put together a clean, solid product for online,” he says, “and we don’t see ourselves going back.”
What Andersson does see is that increased online attendance during the pandemic brought with it something new: data showing that ⅔ of online viewers are not from within driving distance to a campus location. Rather than view live and online as a competition, the pastor chooses to see online as simply a different way to attend church--one that promises to reach a different and much broader audience. “It’s similar to an NFL game,” he says. “It’s great to be there, but the stadium experience from the seats and what you see on the screen are two different things. The screen can get you closer and give you multiple viewpoints. The experience is different, but one is not a subpar version of the other.”
Data shows that ⅔ of online viewers were not from within driving distance to a campus location.
As to Church of the King’s direction for online worship, Andersson points to similarity of “the journey” for online worshippers, and how effective relationships can be built remotely. “You can disciple people without meeting in person—I’ve seen it work. It really boils down to relationships and discovering how best to do that digitally.” Andersson’s work with his online congregants teaches them how to pursue Godly relationships around them. “Much the same as we would do in person,” he says, “we teach them discipleship: bible engagement, prayer, godly relations, and serving. Of course, we had to work on our service, too, to better meet the online audience, but it wasn't just about production.”
Church of the King’s popular Saturday night service is recorded at their broadcast location to be edited with pre-recorded content to become their online service for the rest of the weekend. “Our awareness of the online audience is something we had to work on,” recalls Andersson. “For example, when our worship leader welcomes worshipers at the Saturday night service he can’t use the word ‘tonight’ because the service will also be seen on Sunday morning.” Also, production teams there worked hard to remove any local references. “You can’t tell people to go pick a box in the lobby,” he offers, “because that is going to be lost on an online viewer. References that are specifically American, like Thanksgiving, or something ‘down the street’ don’t work for a global audience unless we explain them. It’s a shift in mindset and something we had to work on.”
Finding what works
Jeremy Epps, Director of 12Stone Creative at 12Stone Church in Lawrenceville, Georgia, enjoys the challenge of making online church succeed. “We’re all doing online differently,” he notes. “Covid put organizations in the same spot—starting over. At which point, we all had to ask ourselves, ‘How do we do this?’” While he says that it could take years to say definitively what works and what doesn’t, he’s confident that while you can’t communicate online as you would locally, you can still reach people on a personal level. “It’s most important,” he says, “not to lose the personal aspects of worship.”
Epps acknowledges the many challenges of keeping online worshippers engaged. More than just acknowledging them, though, he and his teams are not afraid to experiment to find what works best. “We believe that in our culture, people are looking for consistent engagement,” he says, “so that is always something we need to consider with our sets, programming, and content.”
“To arrive at what really works for online church, we have to act with humility. We need to experiment and hold onto things loosely. Then, build where we succeed, pivot if we fail.”
—Jeremy Epps, Director of 12Stone Creative, 12Stone Church, Lawrenceville, GA
One thing that 12Stone has seen work is engagement with small groups, so when it came to updating sets on their main stage, Epps and his 12Stone teams designed video-friendly sets on either side of the stage that, instead of employing traditional stage elements, leveraged things that an online viewer could identify with. “We wanted the sets to be familiar and comfortable,” he recalls, “so we included couches and things you would find around you at home.” One element that can be employed in the sets is a common, domestic door frame and door. In size and appearance, it is very like a door you would have in your home. In teaching moments, 12Stone speakers have used these common doors to represent all sorts of passages, including doors to self-indulgence and to self-restraint.
“People can relate when stories and sets contain references to something familiar and significant in their lives,” Epps states. “These places on our stage are less like sets than they are meeting places.” Moving forward, he envisions the next update to the church’s video studio might make it look more like a public meeting spot rather than a traditional space designed for talking heads; perhaps modeled after a neighborhood cafe or relaxed coffee stop.
“To arrive at what really works for online church, we have to act with humility,” says Epps. “We need to experiment and hold onto things loosely. Then, build where we succeed, pivot if we fail.”
