Virtual Church Resources
Live streaming
As we navigate the COVID-19 pandemic, live streaming is a key way to stay connected with your congregation and community—and not just on Sundays. Virtual worship is good and important, but so is offering devotionals and pastoral messages throughout the week at a time when isolation and loneliness are very real concerns. The great thing is: If you have a smart phone, an Internet connection, and perhaps a church Facebook page, you can very easily begin to stream.
Do you need someone to help? Contact Rev. Cullen Tanner, our technology and ministry specialist, to get help setting up or improving your church's live streaming setup or to discuss best practices. cullen.tanner@minnesotaumc.org / (612) 230-6138
Are you ready to try Facebook Live for the first time? The Michigan Conference created an excellent step-by-step guide that contains everything you need to know to set it up (it is shared with permission). Note: People who do not have Facebook accounts can still access Facebook Live videos if your church's Facebook page is public (which most are) and you send them a direct link to your page. Access guide
Some additional resources we recommend:
- Preaching to an empty room: Pastors have been struggling with the shift from preaching to a room full of beloved parishioners to speaking into a camera. This article from the Lewis Center for Church Leadership provides helpful tips and strategies as you continue to adapt to live streaming your worship service.
- How to Facebook Live (for any size church): A Baptist church in Covington, Georgia, created a video showing the steps to stream using Facebook Live (and dispelling the myth that it's too complex to figure out).
- Taking worship online: A guide for beginners and everyone else: United Methodist Communications offers some considerations for platform, relational connection, the offering, audio, and video.
- Live streaming guide: This UMC Support resource shares some basics on how to do a live stream for social media consumption, including necessary equipment, hosting and delivery, and how to set it all up.
- How can we livestream worship legally?: United Methodist Communications outlines copyright considerations in order to legally livestream your worship service.
- New Limited Podcast / Streaming License: OneLicense.net, which covers lots of popular church music, is offering a new Limited Podcast / Streaming License that provides the right to podcast or stream more than 80,000 hymns and songs in live streamed or pre-recorded online worship services. Content may be posted to your organization’s website, YouTube, Facebook, Zoom, Vimeo, Instagram, and more. Using this license will ensure you are following the law as you broadcast copyrighted material. Previously, to get this licesne you also had to pay for a license that covered in-person worship. Now you can get this license on its own.
- OneLicense.net previously offered a free upgrade to add the live streaming license to a current in-person license. For those who took advantage of that limited time offer, they are now offering an additional 10 percent discount on the live stream license should you elect to continue for one year.
- Copyright licensing Q&A: The General Manager of OneLicense hosted a webinar on licensing and live streaming. Make sure your church is following copyright guidelines for all of your videos, or your content may be removed by Facebook, YouTube, or any other platform on which it is hosted.
- Sensory-rich live streaming: In this video, worship consultant Marcia McFee offers tips for engaged worship when there is no congregation present in-person.
- Singing in a live stream situation: The Center for Congregational Song offers a few guidelines and ideas to help people make the most of singing at home during online worship.
- Telling the Old Story in a New Time Workbook: Author and creative worship coach Jason Moore led a webinar for church leaders this spring. While the recording is no longer available, the workbook, filled with helpful resources, is still available. You are encouraged to think through considerations such as shifting practices from in-person to virtual, offering worship for the technologically challenged, creating worship that lasts beyond the moment, and preparing for guests. The workbook also covers tools for creating a sense of community, technology tips, copyright concerns, and equipment resources.
Virtual meetings
If you are interested in purchasing a video conferencing account so that you can schedule all the remote meeting you might want to have, here are two recommended, cloud-based platforms:
- Zoom: Its most basic plan (which has some restrictions) is free.
- BlueJeans: Its most basic plan has been reduced to $9.99 per month.
- Google Meet: An accessible and free service.
Finances and giving
If you need help talking to your church, your staff, or your leadership team about electronic giving and/or weighing your options, contact Cullen Tanner.
Faith formation
Support for pastors
- Joining Together in Resilience: Caring for Others/Ourselves: LeaderWise, a local organization that provides psychologoical and leadership development and resources for ministry, is hosting weekly 45-minute Zoom sessions for ministry leaders to find emotional support and a place to let down their guard, including a brief session of gentle chair yoga led by a certified instructor.
- Vibrantfaith.org is hosting weekly office hours to share from their wealth of insight, ideas, and experience. This is also a space for church leaders who need a listening ear space to share their concerns or questions.
- How to Lead Through Crisis: A seven-part video teaching from respected church leadership expert Carey Nieuwhof is available for free.
- Pivot Podcast: If you’re struggling to understand how best to adapt as a leader during the pandemic, the “Pivot Podcast” is a great place to begin. It invites church leaders to use the disruption of COVID-19 to reimagine church, ministry, and leadership. Each week, three veteran church leaders consider how the Christian faith can help us pivot toward the emerging future.
Other tools
- ChurchPulse Weekly: This free tool from Barna was designed to help you stay connected with the needs of your church and to learn how people are coping and adapting during this time of distancing. ChurchPulse Weekly starts with a digital survey that goes out to the members of your church. These results are then sent to you so you can keep your finger on the pulse of your church. The results also go to ChurchPulse Weekly, where they are aggregated to create a picture of how our nation’s churches are doing. These aggregated results are shared with pastors and analyzed in a ChurchPulse Weekly podcast featuring experts Carey Nieuwhof and David Kinnaman. Sign up here and find the podcast here.
- Carey Nieuwhof is a widely respected thinker and leader in church leadership. His blog is full of helpful tips for crisis management in general and he’s offering valuable advice about maintaining connection and improving your video worship service—and he adds a new post almost daily.
- Preachingandworship.org has curated hundreds of resources for churches during the COVID-19 pandemic. Find resources and articles about online worship and building community.
- TextInChurch, a company that offers mass-text communication to help facilitate communication for churches, is offering a 60-day free trial in response to COVID-19.
