Dave Dolphin on doing church online and what I’ve learned so far during the strangest two weeks ever
With the recent pandemic with the COVID-19 virus, self-quarnenjining and social distancing, churches across the United States and beyond are scrambling to figure out how to hold church without actually physically meeting together in one space. We’re having to become experts overnight in the area of live streaming and church online. In this bonus podcast episode, I share all the things I’ve learned over the last few weeks—things that have succeeding and things that have failed—plus a bunch of resources I’ve found along the way.
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There’s a ton of resources I want to pass along:
On Sunday, March 15 we still held an in-person gathering but also did a Facebook Live using OBS. This is what it looked like.
The following Sunday, March 22 we did a pre-produced church online video and used the “premiere” feature on both Facebook and YouTube. It looked like this.
Good broadcast audio is a major piece of making your church online service a great experience. Here’s a YouTube playlist of a few videos I made.
Another topic to consider is copyright, music licensing and CCLI. Here’s a YouTube playlist of a few videos I’ve created on this topic.
Life.Church developed their own church online platform that is available for any church to use for free.
MxU is a fantastic resource for church audio engineers (and now church lighting designers), and they just released a ton of resources specific to church online. One is a podcast episode where several of the production staff at Bayside Church in northern California talk about how they scrambled to do church online for all seven of their campuses.
The rest are a series of YouTube videos talking about building a great broadcast audio mix.
My friend Jake Gosselin of Churchfront has creating several YouTube videos on how to do church online. One is a video of three simple ideas that are especially useful for smaller churches with limited resources.
Also, as a mobile church that typically meets in a public school gym, they had to build a make-shift broadcast studio to do church online. Here’s a video of Jake giving a tour of this studio.
Another great friend Brian Wahl of Worship Tutorials just released a video on his experiences with live streaming including gear recommendations, tips for audio and lighting and another social media hacks.
Many are familiar with Multitracks.com as a source for worship song tracks. They just released a great video on the legality of using multitracks in live-streamed church services along with several tips on using tracks in an online service.
Brady Shearer of Pro Church Tools has tons of resources for utilizing social media in church. Check out their YouTube channel for great videos to become a social media guru.
Also their products like Nucleus and RebelGive product are a great way to get started with a church website and online giving.
Stream Monkey is an exceptional service for churches looking for a high quality option for live streaming to their website or to Facebook.
Finally, shout-out to The Adam Rainwater and Jazmine Faith for their COVID-19/Dexy’s Midnight Runner parody. (You do know that nearly every podcast episode has some sort of Easter egg at the end, right?!)