Does your church’s online presence need an upgrade?

There are many ways your church can improve its online presence, especially through livestreaming. If you want to minister to your current members as well as attract seekers to your church, the following tips and tools will increase your effectiveness.

Does your church need a livestream presence?

One must consider many important questions when deciding whether a church needs to invest in starting and/or improving a livestream presence. For example, is the livestream only reaching current members, and is that acceptable? If the livestream goes to seekers, is a plan in place to connect with and minister to them?

Many congregations have decided that having a livestream online presence is a necessity in the current digital age. Here are some of the benefits.

Often, members will join a livestream when they are traveling or sick. They may do it not only to hear the sermon but also to connect with someone from the church who may be able to pray for them or visit them. This can be a powerful way of ministering to and staying in contact with church members, whether in person or online.

For seekers, checking out a church online is often the first step in deciding whether they want to visit in person. They will use Google Maps, for example, to search for churches in their area and then look at the church’s website and social media accounts. If all appears good, they will take time to watch some past services online. They may then decide to come in person.¹

If, however, any one of the digital pieces of the puzzle is missing, such individuals may start looking elsewhere. In other words, it may be helpful to have your church service online, not only for whoever may listen to the sermon in real time but also to give a potential seeker an idea of who you are as a community and what things you value.

Improve your livestreaming

Whether you have been livestreaming for a while or just decided to start, you need to keep in mind some key components to have a quality presentation.

Get high-quality equipment. First, consider the physical elements—how things look and sound to your viewers. Invest in quality cameras, lighting, and microphones. If the video and sound are of poor quality, people will stop watching. Additionally, because many primarily listen to video sermons rather than watch them, prioritizing audio quality is especially important.

You may want to get a PTZ (pan-tilt-zoom) camera, which will allow you to zoom in and point the camera at different parts of the church for various parts of the service (announcements, special music, children’s story, sermon, and so on). Purchase the highest resolution (preferably 4K) your budget can afford. For a more professional look, consider getting multiple cameras to provide different viewing angles. Whatever equipment you get, be sure that those who use it are well trained in its use. Even the best equipment will not fully compensate for inexperience, which may then turn a person off from visiting your church.

When it comes to lighting, be sure the people on the platform are well lit (not too bright and not too dim). Additionally, think about how the speaker will look in his or her surroundings. Will their background be distracting to viewers, or will it provide a good contrast that makes the speaker stand out visually? Make sure you also clear any clutter off the platform (such as water bottles, unnecessary microphones, chairs, power cords, extra hymnals, papers, bulletins, mismatched decorations). Keep the shots of the speaker as tight as possible without being distracting if the camera does not keep up with movement or must move constantly. Your goal is to make it easy for the viewer to focus on the speaker and what they are saying.

As already noted, while it is understandable to think primarily about visuals for a livestream, it is just as important, if not more so, to have quality audio. Your speaker’s microphone should be crisp and clear. Whether it is a microphone attached to their lapel, over their ear, or on a microphone stand, it should be equipped with a pop filter to prevent popping sounds, which can be distracting. You want to give people the best possible experience, visually and audibly. Therefore, ongoing training of volunteers to use equipment, livestreaming platforms, social media, and audio-visual editing tools is vital.

Plan and practice for the best experience. It is important to test your equipment and practice with it ahead of time, especially the transitions. Practicing ahead allows time for any questions or clarifications, as well as for people to feel prepared and comfortable for their part in the service.

Additionally, you need a team with dedicated roles to ensure the livestream runs smoothly. For example, have a platform coordinator, camera controller, audio engineer, and broadcast graphics² supervisor. The entire team can then create an outlined plan for each service, including who has charge of each segment. Having a plan and practicing it helps both those leading during the service and those in the congregation (in person and online) to have the best experience possible.

Engage your online audience. The speaker, music team,³ and others should be trained and encouraged to interact with the online congregation. Whether during the welcome and announcements, in the sermon, at an altar call, or during prayer or benediction, the speaker can refer to and speak directly to the online audience as well.

It is also helpful to remember that those joining online may not be familiar with your church (or with Adventism in general), so it is crucial to avoid insider language. Be sure to explain anything outside of ordinary terminology or general cultural knowledge. Some examples from the Adventist culture could be haystacks, Pathfinders, and the Spirit of Prophecy.

Have one person dedicated to being an online presence during your livestream to notify you of problems and respond to those who are commenting online. Such a social media ministry person can welcome people in the chat, answer comments, pray for them, and point them toward resources. Some churches also have such an individual write down or print out the prayer requests made online in real time and bring them to the person leading prayer time so they can be included during the church service. Churches that experience high responses during livestreaming may consider creating an online prayer meeting using Zoom, Microsoft Teams, or Google Meet.

If you want people currently not part of your church family to become part of it, such channels of response are crucial. It is the personal connection that will bring those visiting online physically into your church.

Improve your YouTube/social media presence

Once you have successfully livestreamed your church service, what do you do next? Many assume that their goal has been achieved. However, it might surprise you to find that many livestreams receive more views after the service has concluded than when they are live. How is that possible? While some churches can experience this just by leaving their livestream available as an on-demand video (on YouTube or Facebook, for example), most congregations with a successful online presence achieve this by intentional effort.

Upload just the sermon as well. In addition to posting the full livestream of your church service, you will want to upload a video that only contains the sermon. Since the full service could be more than two hours long, you need something more accessible and shorter, such as a 30-minute sermon, that someone who visits your social media page would be more interested in watching. YouTube has an online editing tool that will enable you to quickly clip and post a sermon.

You can use photo and video editing software to improve the appeal of such sermon videos. Take time to research the latest trends for YouTube thumbnails and utilize them to attract people to your videos. You can also edit out any mistakes or long pauses in your video to help things flow more smoothly. Even if you do not have a big budget, there are wonderful free software options, such as Canva and DaVinci Resolve.

Create short clips. Next, take that sermon video and create at least three to five short clips (30–120 seconds each) of some highlights or quotable moments. When you upload them as YouTube Shorts or Reels on Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok, you can link each short video to the longer version of the video, thus generating traffic from the shorts to the sermons and ultimately toward your church’s online presence in general.

You can also do similar things with other portions of your service if they are excellent or of emphasis in your church, such as a church choir or children’s story puppet ministry. Apps such as SermonShots can help with their AI-enabled editing.

Ways to improve your online presence. Once you have uploaded such videos onto your church’s social media pages, there are further ways to improve your online presence. For example, on the YouTube channel, you can designate a video to be your “Welcome Video” that plays whenever someone new clicks on your page. It should be short (2 to 3 minutes) and inspiring, highlighting the strengths and ministries of your church, such as your pastor’s sermons, your church’s emphasis on community service, Pathfinders, or children’s ministry.

Another helpful practice is to have someone from your ministry team dedicated to checking all your videos for new comments. Train them to respond and engage with others in a prayerful and Christlike way.

You can empower young people in your church to engage in livestreaming and social media ministries. They often participate on and are familiar with such platforms already and are looking for opportunities to be involved and offer their gifts and talents for ministry. Perhaps they could work with an elder who possesses a pastoral/mentoring heart.

An inviting gateway

Employing some of the ideas suggested above in your church’s livestreaming will not only strengthen your own members’ ties to the church but also help create an inviting gateway for those seeking a new spiritual home.