Download the free ebook “Why and How we livestream” here.
Introduction
St. James’ Episcopal Church in Fremont California created its channel on YouTube on March 14th 2020. Our first online service was posted on our website saintj.com on Sunday March 15th 2020, along with an online Sunday School and we’ve not missed a Sunday since. We’ve learnt a lot in the intervening years, and while we stopped sharing Sunday School online once we regathered after COVID, sharing our worship online is here to stay and we continue to stream online every Sunday.
St. James’ is an Episcopal community in the Bay Area of California with an Average Sunday Attendance of around 120. In 2023, Sunday Worship streams were watched live an average of 9 times. Sunday services were streamed on average 15 times on the first day (including those watching live) and reaching a total of 27 times in the first week.
This document attempts to capture why and how we’re livestreaming today. It’s written in three parts – first to discuss the background for the non-technical audience, and then to discuss the details for those who want to know more. This first section is intended for those who want to understand our reasoning behind why and what we do. The second section is written to describe the details of how we do it. The third section captures our journey between March 2020 and July 2021 and is included for historical context.
This document is not intended to be a tutorial, nor is it shared as “the ultimate guide of how to livestream”. It’s shared to be a description of what works for us. You’re not going to become an expert in 10 minutes, or even a day. You’re certainly not going to become an expert by reading these pages! Treat this as a case study – it might (or might not) resonate with your own needs or experiences. There are many other solutions that I’ve seen work – your own will be based on your intentions, starting point, skill set, budget and space.
If I offer two tips it would be these:
- Look at online services from the perspective of the worshiper. If this is your primary access to worship, what do you like? What do you need? Look at the experience your own church offers and compare it to other churches online – what inspiration can you take?
- Be prepared to be a sponge, experiment and iterate. There’s no ‘quick fix’ or recipe that will work for you, and you shouldn’t expect to be able to take short-cuts to get to a final result. Watch videos, read blogs, articles and manuals. Search on Google.
At the end, we’ll not be judged by how professional our production looks and sounds – we’ll be judged by whether we’ve enabled folks to worship, share in the experience of our services, and come closer to God. Just as we want our in-person services to be accessible to all-comers, so we should seek for our online presence to be accessible to all and inviting them to visit again. And if they are able, to join our worship in-person.
Mike Scrutton, November 2024.