You may be skeptical about placing videos from your church online, or you may be eager to get started. As with any ministry of the church, it is imperative to know how that ministry fits into the overall vision of the church. The same is true with online video streaming.
The most common form of video streaming used by churches is to put videos of sermons on their website. There are additional benefits for video streaming other aspects of the church, but in this post we will explore six ways video streaming can help your church in regards to the sermon.
Six Ways Video Streaming Can Help Your Church
1. It Extends the Reach Of Your Church Locally
This technology allows your church to extend its worship and education ministries beyond the walls of the church.
- Local Homebound: Those who are not physically able to make it to the church building can now be a part of the experience.
- Local Unchurched: Those who may not enter the church building now have a safe, anonymous way of watching. This can be a great way for people to try your church without experiencing the initial fear of entering the building.
- Church members: This allows your college students, former members who have moved away, and military to be a part of your congregation and receive continued discipleship and encouragement. You will also be surprised at how many viewers will watch from other countries who have ties to your church.
2. Facilitates Discipleship
Streaming can be used for more than the Sunday morning worship service. Whether it is the busy person who cannot make it to the church building during the week for Bible study or military members stationed around the world, online Bible studies are a great way to provide discipleship.
3. Inclement Weather
When the storms make it unsafe for people to come to the church building, having an online stream allows people to watch the service from home (providing they still have electricity and Internet service).It is a good idea to have a prerecorded service ready to use for any unforeseen weather event.
4. More Economical Than Television
Television still has advantages. However, the cost of TV air time is expensive. There are two options for TV: local and cable. The local TV obviously only airs in your town or area. Cable can air nationally. The cost greatly increases as the coverage area increases. Internet streaming can be free depending upon your strategy (we will look at these options more in a later post). However, even the paid streaming options are much cheaper than TV, and by default, the coverage area is global (potentially wherever there is an Internet connection).
5. Incubator for Growth
It is important to have tools in place to measure the usage of the online stream. These tools are able to show where in the world there are concentrations of people viewing the online stream. Imagine being able to identify that you have several viewers located closely together in an area several hundred miles away. With a goal to grow the Kingdom, you can take steps to get those people involved in a church in their area. Another option is to get those people connected to one another and start a small group Bible study in their town. Are there enough people so that you can start another campus for your church in their area? Freedom Life Church in Hampton, Virginia, realized they had several "viewers" in San Antonio, TX.. They have decided to start a new campus in San Antonio.
6. It extends the reach of your church.
It allows you to reach more people with the message of Christ than can fit in the sanctuary of your church building.
Conclusion
Online streaming may not be right for every church. However, if you are looking to make a greater impact in your local community and around the world, it has never been as easy or affordable through the use of online video streaming.
Beyond Streaming
While streaming offers great opportunities, it is important to consider going beyond streaming the worship service to launching an online campus as a vital part of your ministry.
Questions
How is video streaming being effectively used at your church? What questions do you have as you start to incorporate video streaming into your minfrasTructure strategy?