3 Reasons to Live Stream Your Church Service—and How to Do It with Faithlife

When the coronavirus prevented in-person church gatherings, many churches started thinking about how they should share their services online. The question pastors and church leaders asked: is it better to live stream or to prerecord your sermon?

If you’ve been thinking about which option is the best fit for your church, I’d like to introduce you to Faithlife’s newest offering, Faithlife Live Stream. It’s a user-friendly live streaming service that works seamlessly with the Faithlife products you already use. Here are all the places that automatically update—and where people can watch the sermon—when you use Faithlife Live Stream:

• Your church’s Faithlife group (accessible to group members)
• Your church’s Faithlife Site (no sign-in required for guests)
• Your church’s Faithlife TV channel (also available on the Faithlife TV apps)

In addition to being accessible from your Faithlife group, you can also give your attendees and guests a direct link to the live stream or embed it on a website. Learn more about how to find your live stream direct link. 

You don’t have to use your webcam to live stream—you can use a dedicated camera. And you don’t have to connect it to a computer—you can use a hardware encoder. Here’s how:

Plus, the live stream gives your audience chances to fellowship with each other over built-in chat as well as a button to give if your church uses Faithlife Giving—making it easy for your congregation to give as a part of their worship. 

All these integrations mean it’s not just easier to live stream your church service—it’s easier for people to join you in worshipping God.

But if you’re still on the fence about whether live streaming is the right move, here are three reasons that might help you choose:

1. You want to foster a sense of togetherness. With built-in chat functionality through your church’s Faithlife group, your attendees can share prayer needs or note a powerful point in the sermon. It’s not the same as in-person fellowship, but it helps!
2. You want to keep your typical service time. Church time is a set part of our weeks. Keeping your service time helps people stay in that rhythm. 
3. You don’t have time to edit a prerecorded video. Whether you’re a pastor, church admin, or lay leader, you may not have the time or equipment to record the service start to finish—much less edit it. With live streaming, you don’t have to worry about do-overs or splicing audio. It’s all there.

Faithlife Live Stream is easy to use and affordable for churches—and you can start using it right away. Your first 30 days are free, and pricing after that is based on how many people watch live in a month. (Here’s how Faithlife Live Stream works.)

Ready to get started with Faithlife Live Stream? Hop to livestream.faithlife.com, click Start free trial, choose the size that fits your church, then select or create your church’s Faithlife group. That’s it!