Frequently Asked Questions

Interaction is very important when church is forced online only. But making church interactive using this medium is not quite as easy as it sounds. Before I make some practical suggestions, I do want to make a few points to consider. These are not rules, just things to consider.

1. Be careful not to make church so different that it becomes something else entirely. Remember that we will come back to a stage where we will be able to do church again the way we used to.
2. Try to keep church about fellow congregation members fellow shipping together, and not just the parish members watching the staff do church.
3. Interaction is important as it will help to prevent church online from becoming purely entertainment.
4. Try to keep as many elements as possible that are part of your church identity. The character of your church is what it is because of these elements and maintaining them if at all possible will help to maintain a sense of community.
5. There will be some things that you do as church that will be public and some that will be more private. These lines were probably a bit more blurred previously. Now they need to be a bit clearer. Don’t forget that some of the people watching you stream may have never attended your church.

  So back to the topic of how to make your live stream more interactive. Here are some suggestions. If you want to know more then please get in touch.

• Do a live cross to skype or zoom – and interview a congregation member
• Ask members to text in questions about the sermon
• Pre-record testimonials from members and play the recording back as a segment during the livestream
• Have multiple people doing different parts of the service.
• Encourage commenting on the live-streaming platform and spend time responding afterwards.

   

Every church is different and you need to consider what gear you have, what skills you have and also how you want your congregation to experience the new church environment.

What is really important from a ministry perspective is that you members can still engage and interact with the staff and other congregation members.

Live-streaming does lend itself to be interactive, but only if you make it interactive, and whilst pre-recorded services may not sound very interactive, they can be if you do it right.

I will write up “how do I make my pre-recorded service more interactive?” and also “how do I make my livestream more interactive?”

From a “production” perspective, the main difference will be the amount of time spent by all the people involved, and the times at which that work needs to be done.

If you are pre-recording various sections of the service and then stitching them together afterwards, then there will be a lot of “post edit” time spent bringing all of the recorded parts together. However you do have some flexibility as to when you do that work. It does also allow you to re-use common parts of a service.

If you are going down the livestream route, then all of your “production” will be done in real time and you need to do that work at the time you want your livestream to be “live”. You will still need some prep time and you may still use some pre-recorded content.

For example, in my own church we are streaming live. It means that there are 5 or 6 of us at the church each week. We are streaming one weekly service to replace our original 5 congregations. Most of the service elements are done live, but we will play pre-recorded music (that we have permission for) at the end and we have also pre-recorded a baptism that will be “replayed” onto the livestream. To encourage interaction we are continuing our normal tradition of having a question time after the sermon. This allows people to text in questions to a “pre-paid” mobile which are then asked live by one of the staff and the preacher answers them. This was a fairly easy transition of something that was traditional for us, into the online world which helps to keep us true to who we are as a church.

I know others though, that pre-record their whole service, and then they make it available at a specific time each week, the staff are all active on the social media platforms and ready to interact. This concept of pre-recording frees up the staff to make them available to be more interactive.

There are multiple ways to stream to Youtube, but here I will quickly explain the minimum gear needed to get going.

You will need the following gear:

• A camera – Preferably on a tripod
• A computer – The more powerful the better but many are using Mac-books that are up to 8 years old.
• A streaming program like OBS
• A Video Capture device – That is compatible with your computer (examples here)
• A solid Internet connection
• A microphone that can connect to your camera, or a microphone and a small mix desk
• If you are using a small mix desk you will need an Audio Inserter

You will also need to create a Youtube channel for your church if you do not have one already.
You will also need to enable live-streaming which could take up to 24 hours

Once your channel is ready, you will need to create a new livestream from the live control room.
You are wanting to get the “Stream Key” which will need to be set into OBS

Go to OBS and Settings and select Streaming from the left-hand menu
Select Youtube from the list and paste in your “Stream Key”
Save the settings and then you should be able to go live.

 

Our video tutorials page has videos on how to setup OBS and a BlackMagic UltraStudio Mini Recorder, and how to stream to various platforms.

There is a lot of specific OBS help on their website here : https://obsproject.com/wiki/

And Youtube has a guide to starting out here : https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2474026?hl=en

But you can always call us for support and to talk about what gear you may need.

This is common when using the built-in microphones on cameras or smartphones.

If you are using a proper video camera and you are feeding the audio into another device for recording or streaming, then you could Insert the Audio into the HDMI connection. Otherwise you need to look at ways to add a better microphone to the camera.

If your camera has XLR inputs, you could even connect a send from your sound desk to the camera enabling you to use multiple microphones.

The ultimate goal is to get the microphone closer to the speaker or the sound that you are wanting to pick up.

For speech a good condenser microphone designed for a podium is an excellent choice especially if you are standing. The condenser will pick up well and if you keep the speakers off (assuming there is no need for them) you can turn them up without risk of feedback. If the speaker is seated, then a lapel mic or a headset mic is better. (Of course this advice assumes that the congregation is not in the room – once you add local speakers then lapel mics can feedback easily and condensers are still good but care should be taken to ensure that they do not cause feed-back

This will depend a lot on the type of camera you have.

If you are recording in the camera, then you need to get a good connection. Most cameras will have at least a 3.5mm mic input. This will accept a microphone specifically designed for cameras. But it will not work with smart-phone headphones as they typically have a 4 pole connector.

If you have a higher quality camera it may have XLR inputs. These are much more flexible for connecting input sources. In this case you could connect a basic microphone similar to what you use for vocals. You could also connect your radio mic receiver, allowing you to use a wireless headset, lapel or handheld mic.

If your microphone does not work, then check to see if it requires Phantom Power. Condenser mics need a voltage sent down the mic cable to power the mini-amplifier in the microphone. Some cameras like the Canon XA55 have a +48v switch to power these types of microphones.

 

We have spent years teaching church sound people to not mix with headphones on because it has always been important to make the audio sound right “In the room, that is, you need to make it sound right for the audience who is in the room with you.

But now that you are mixing for live-stream, you need to be listening to what the audience is going to hear, and they wont be in the room with you. You need to grab those headphones and even better you should be mixing in a separate location where you cant hear them live.

If you can hear the musicians playing without your headphones then you will naturally adjust your mix to make what you are hearing sound right. Instead, you need to mix so that what is in your headphones (what is going to live-stream) is all that you can hear, and it sounds great.

The vocals are usually too loud on a livestream mix because, in the room you are usually increasing their volume to get them up over the instrument sound that is live in the room.

Music is an important part of church and for me it feels like it has taken a pretty hard hit as a result of these recent changes that we have had to deal with. So I am very keen to answer this question.

Yes. You can stream music but there are conditions.

A church would normally need to obtain a Church Streaming License from CCLI. The church streaming license allows streaming or podcasting of recorded worship services. The Streaming Licence provides coverage for every one of the 300,000 songs covered under the CCLI Copyright Licence.

The church streaming license is an annual license and is not very expensive.

Without the church streaming license you would need to obtain specific permission from the copyright owner before you can perform those songs on a live-streamed service.

There are a number of music publishers and copyright owners that have released their material for use on church live-streams during this difficult period. So have a look around and see what material may be able to be used. Just make sure that the release is official and that it does cover you for your intended use.

 

Interaction is very important when church is forced online only. But making church interactive using this medium is not quite as easy as it sounds.

Before I make some practical suggestions, I do want to make a few points to consider. These are not rules, just things to consider.

1. Be careful not to make church so different that it becomes something else entirely. Remember that we will come back to a stage where we will be able to do church again the way we used to.
2. Try to keep church about fellow congregation members fellow shipping together, and not just the parish members watching the staff do church.
3. Interaction is important as it will help to prevent church online from becoming purely entertainment.
4. Try to keep as many elements as possible that are part of your church identity. The character of your church is what it is because of these elements and maintaining them if at all possible will help to maintain a sense of community.
5. There will be some things that you do as church that will be public and some that will be more private. These lines were probably a bit more blurred previously. Now they need to be a bit clearer. Don’t forget that some of the people watching you stream may have never attended your church.

 

So back to the topic of how to make your live stream more interactive. Here are some suggestions. If you want to know more then please get in touch.

• Do a live cross to skype or zoom – and interview a congregation member
• Ask members to text in questions about the sermon
• Pre-record testimonials from members and play the recording back as a segment during the livestream
• Have multiple people doing different parts of the service.
• Encourage commenting on the live-streaming platform and spend time responding afterwards.

 

 

Every church is different and you need to consider what gear you have, what skills you have and also how you want your congregation to experience the new church environment.

What is really important from a ministry perspective is that you members can still engage and interact with the staff and other congregation members.

Live-streaming does lend itself to be interactive, but only if you make it interactive, and whilst pre-recorded services may not sound very interactive, they can be if you do it right.

I will write up “how do I make my pre-recorded service more interactive?” and also “how do I make my livestream more interactive?”

From a “production” perspective, the main difference will be the amount of time spent by all the people involved, and the times at which that work needs to be done.

If you are pre-recording various sections of the service and then stitching them together afterwards, then there will be a lot of “post edit” time spent bringing all of the recorded parts together. However you do have some flexibility as to when you do that work. It does also allow you to re-use common parts of a service.

If you are going down the livestream route, then all of your “production” will be done in real time and you need to do that work at the time you want your livestream to be “live”. You will still need some prep time and you may still use some pre-recorded content.

For example, in my own church we are streaming live. It means that there are 5 or 6 of us at the church each week. We are streaming one weekly service to replace our original 5 congregations. Most of the service elements are done live, but we will play pre-recorded music (that we have permission for) at the end and we have also pre-recorded a baptism that will be “replayed” onto the livestream. To encourage interaction we are continuing our normal tradition of having a question time after the sermon. This allows people to text in questions to a “pre-paid” mobile which are then asked live by one of the staff and the preacher answers them. This was a fairly easy transition of something that was traditional for us, into the online world which helps to keep us true to who we are as a church.

I know others though, that pre-record their whole service, and then they make it available at a specific time each week, the staff are all active on the social media platforms and ready to interact. This concept of pre-recording frees up the staff to make them available to be more interactive.

Interaction is very important when church is forced online only. But making church interactive using this medium is not quite as easy as it sounds.

Before I make some practical suggestions, I do want to make a few points to consider. These are not rules, just things to consider.

1. Be careful not to make church so different that it becomes something else entirely. Remember that we will come back to a stage where we will be able to do church again the way we used to.
2. Try to keep church about fellow congregation members fellow shipping together, and not just the parish members watching the staff do church.
3. Interaction is important as it will help to prevent church online from becoming purely entertainment.
4. Try to keep as many elements as possible that are part of your church identity. The character of your church is what it is because of these elements and maintaining them if at all possible will help to maintain a sense of community.
5. There will be some things that you do as church that will be public and some that will be more private. These lines were probably a bit more blurred previously. Now they need to be a bit clearer. Don’t forget that some of the people watching you stream may have never attended your church.

 

So back to the topic of how to make your live stream more interactive. Here are some suggestions. If you want to know more then please get in touch.

• Do a live cross to skype or zoom – and interview a congregation member
• Ask members to text in questions about the sermon
• Pre-record testimonials from members and play the recording back as a segment during the livestream
• Have multiple people doing different parts of the service.
• Encourage commenting on the live-streaming platform and spend time responding afterwards.

 

 

Every church is different and you need to consider what gear you have, what skills you have and also how you want your congregation to experience the new church environment.

What is really important from a ministry perspective is that you members can still engage and interact with the staff and other congregation members.

Live-streaming does lend itself to be interactive, but only if you make it interactive, and whilst pre-recorded services may not sound very interactive, they can be if you do it right.

I will write up “how do I make my pre-recorded service more interactive?” and also “how do I make my livestream more interactive?”

From a “production” perspective, the main difference will be the amount of time spent by all the people involved, and the times at which that work needs to be done.

If you are pre-recording various sections of the service and then stitching them together afterwards, then there will be a lot of “post edit” time spent bringing all of the recorded parts together. However you do have some flexibility as to when you do that work. It does also allow you to re-use common parts of a service.

If you are going down the livestream route, then all of your “production” will be done in real time and you need to do that work at the time you want your livestream to be “live”. You will still need some prep time and you may still use some pre-recorded content.

For example, in my own church we are streaming live. It means that there are 5 or 6 of us at the church each week. We are streaming one weekly service to replace our original 5 congregations. Most of the service elements are done live, but we will play pre-recorded music (that we have permission for) at the end and we have also pre-recorded a baptism that will be “replayed” onto the livestream. To encourage interaction we are continuing our normal tradition of having a question time after the sermon. This allows people to text in questions to a “pre-paid” mobile which are then asked live by one of the staff and the preacher answers them. This was a fairly easy transition of something that was traditional for us, into the online world which helps to keep us true to who we are as a church.

I know others though, that pre-record their whole service, and then they make it available at a specific time each week, the staff are all active on the social media platforms and ready to interact. This concept of pre-recording frees up the staff to make them available to be more interactive.

There are multiple ways to stream to Youtube, but here I will quickly explain the minimum gear needed to get going.

You will need the following gear:

• A camera – Preferably on a tripod
• A computer – The more powerful the better but many are using Mac-books that are up to 8 years old.
• A streaming program like OBS
• A Video Capture device – That is compatible with your computer (examples here)
• A solid Internet connection
• A microphone that can connect to your camera, or a microphone and a small mix desk
• If you are using a small mix desk you will need an Audio Inserter

You will also need to create a Youtube channel for your church if you do not have one already.
You will also need to enable live-streaming which could take up to 24 hours

Once your channel is ready, you will need to create a new livestream from the live control room.
You are wanting to get the “Stream Key” which will need to be set into OBS

Go to OBS and Settings and select Streaming from the left-hand menu
Select Youtube from the list and paste in your “Stream Key”
Save the settings and then you should be able to go live.

 

Our video tutorials page has videos on how to setup OBS and a BlackMagic UltraStudio Mini Recorder, and how to stream to various platforms.

There is a lot of specific OBS help on their website here : https://obsproject.com/wiki/

And Youtube has a guide to starting out here : https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2474026?hl=en

But you can always call us for support and to talk about what gear you may need.

Every church is different and you need to consider what gear you have, what skills you have and also how you want your congregation to experience the new church environment.

What is really important from a ministry perspective is that you members can still engage and interact with the staff and other congregation members.

Live-streaming does lend itself to be interactive, but only if you make it interactive, and whilst pre-recorded services may not sound very interactive, they can be if you do it right.

I will write up “how do I make my pre-recorded service more interactive?” and also “how do I make my livestream more interactive?”

From a “production” perspective, the main difference will be the amount of time spent by all the people involved, and the times at which that work needs to be done.

If you are pre-recording various sections of the service and then stitching them together afterwards, then there will be a lot of “post edit” time spent bringing all of the recorded parts together. However you do have some flexibility as to when you do that work. It does also allow you to re-use common parts of a service.

If you are going down the livestream route, then all of your “production” will be done in real time and you need to do that work at the time you want your livestream to be “live”. You will still need some prep time and you may still use some pre-recorded content.

For example, in my own church we are streaming live. It means that there are 5 or 6 of us at the church each week. We are streaming one weekly service to replace our original 5 congregations. Most of the service elements are done live, but we will play pre-recorded music (that we have permission for) at the end and we have also pre-recorded a baptism that will be “replayed” onto the livestream. To encourage interaction we are continuing our normal tradition of having a question time after the sermon. This allows people to text in questions to a “pre-paid” mobile which are then asked live by one of the staff and the preacher answers them. This was a fairly easy transition of something that was traditional for us, into the online world which helps to keep us true to who we are as a church.

I know others though, that pre-record their whole service, and then they make it available at a specific time each week, the staff are all active on the social media platforms and ready to interact. This concept of pre-recording frees up the staff to make them available to be more interactive.