Should You Live-stream or Pre-record Church During Coronavirus?

Today, as you probably know, we are in the midst of the coronavirus outbreak in the United States, and people everywhere are being affected like we’ve never seen. Gatherings of more than 50 people are outlawed in many places, and just yesterday the president urged Americans to not meet in groups of ten or more for the next 2 weeks. Churches aren’t allowed to meet, restaurants and gyms are forced to close, and life as we know it has changed dramatically. 

Because of this situation, church leaders are forced to deal with an incredibly unique challenge: How do you do church, when you can’t meet even in small groups?

First, should you live-stream or should you pre-record? In my opinion, live-streaming does NOT make sense during this time. The point of a live-stream is to have people join in with your regular gathering and be a part of that in real-time, just from a different place. With the current restrictions in place, you’re going to have to stage a Sunday gathering in essentially an empty room and just pretend like things are normal.

I don’t think this makes sense, especially when you consider the technical and logistical challenges that are involved in producing a live-stream. 

Pre-recording your service or content has a lot of advantages. First, it gives you the ability to edit when things don’t go right, because they never do. Second, it takes the pressure off of your team since it’s not a live recording situation.

Third, you can premiere the service on YouTube on Sunday morning automatically, so nobody needs to be in the building pushing buttons. And forth, you can do something more creative than just film from the back of the room while you preach and sing to empty seats. And that brings me to my next tip: Change the delivery format of your service.

What do I mean by that? Well, quite frankly, this virus outbreak is causing many of us to think creatively about how to do church for the first time in a long time. We’ve gotten so used to Sunday-centric programming and large gatherings that now, we literally can’t do either of those things.

I don’t want to come off as judgmental here, since I used to be a pastor and I know what it’s like to believe in and run that model of church. But I believe that if you can’t think outside the box during this situation, and your only thought is to just do full-on Sunday services for a room of empty chairs and a couple cameras, you’re missing the big picture. We have got to think and adapt about what people need right now, and of the best way to get that to them. 

When we break down our church ministry into elements, you’ve essentially got music, teaching, programs, and community. What can’t you do when you can’t meet in person? Well programs for sure. But can you do music? Sure - but it needs to be done differently. Can you do community? Sure - but it’s going to look a lot different. And can you do teaching? Absolutely - but again, it’s going to look different. 

When it comes to music, I’d record a stripped-down worship set and then overlay the lyrics on your video feed. Acoustic sets are going to be much easier to mix for broadcast, they require fewer people, and they’ll probably get more engagement from people watching at home. I’d do fewer songs in your set, since people at home are likely not going to be singing along like they would be in church, but watching instead.

I know that’s probably not what you want to hear, but let’s be honest, most people aren’t going to sing alone in their living rooms. So work with that. Do music in a way that can be received and come through as a blessing and benediction lyrically through the computer screen. You’ve just got to think differently than just going on autopilot from what Sundays always look and sound like. 

For teaching, there are a lot of good options out there that I’ve seen. Some churches are doing daily podcast episodes during the week, some are doing FB Live teaching, and some are pre-recording sermons from a different context. My opinion is that you’re going to get the best engagement out of people if you pre-record a message somewhere other than your normal stage or platform. Why? Because it’s going to be distracting to everyone watching if you pretend to be talking to people they know aren’t there!

Instead, give your message directly to the camera. Honestly, borrowing the approach of a news broadcast, where they are delivering directly to the camera, is the most natural way to communicate in this kind of situation. If you’re a preacher, you should be used to delivering messages without reading anyways, so I wouldn’t bother with a teleprompter for something so long as a message.

But If you have the luxury of two cameras, I’d recommend using both of them in a multi-cam setup, and have an operator at each one. Either the operators or a producer can switch back and forth between the two cameras as the point of address. It helps to just raise your hand so the pastor knows which camera to address next, and they can turn and make eye contact with that lens.

If you have just one camera, try to crop in and out in editing to break up the visual monotony a bit. You could even get creative and have your pastor walk and talk, or change locations during the message if it’s not too distracting.

We have an incredible opportunity to think creatively and let God’s spirit guide our steps as we figure out how to connect with our congregations during the coronavirus outbreak.

Be sure to leave a comment if you have any thoughts of what might be helpful practices to adopt during this highly unusual time!