Category Archives: Ministry

Meditations, Ministry

Luther on Vainglory

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Commenting on Galatians 5:26, Martin Luther wrote:

The Gospel is not there for us to aggrandize ourselves. The Gospel is to aggrandize Christ and the mercy of God. It holds out to men eternal gifts that are not gifts of our own manufacture. What right have we to receive praise and glory for gifts that are not of our own making?

No wonder that God in His special grace subjects the ministers of the Gospel to all kinds of afflictions, otherwise they could not cope with this ugly beast called vainglory. If no persecution, no cross, or reproach trailed the doctrine of the Gospel, but only praise and reputation, the ministers of the Gospel would choke with pride. Paul had the Spirit of Christ. Nevertheless there was given unto him the messenger of Satan to buffet him in order that he should not come to exalt himself, because of the grandeur of his revelations. St. Augustine’s opinion is well taken: “If a minister of the Gospel is praised, he is in danger; if he is despised, he is also in danger.”

The ministers of the Gospel should be men who are not too easily affected by praise or criticism, but simply speak out the benefit and the glory of Christ and seek the salvation of souls.

Whenever you are being praised, remember it is not you who is being praised but Christ, to whom all praise belongs. When you preach the Word of God in its purity and also live accordingly, it is not your own doing, but God’s doing. And when people praise you, they really mean to praise God in you. When you understand this—and you should because “what hast thou that thou didst not receive?”—you will not flatter yourself on the one hand and on the other hand you will not carry yourself with the thought of resigning from the ministry when you are insulted, reproached, or persecuted.

It is really kind of God to send so much infamy, reproach, hatred, and cursing our way to keep us from getting proud of the gifts of God in us. We need a millstone around our neck to keep us humble. There are a few on our side who love and revere us for the ministry of the Word, but for every one of these there are a hundred on the other side who hate and persecute us.

The Lord is our glory. Such gifts as we possess we acknowledge to be the gifts of God, given to us for the good of the Church of Christ. Therefore we are not proud because of them. We know that more is required of them to whom much is given, than of such to whom little is given. We also know that God is no respecter of persons. A plain factory hand who does his work faithfully pleases God just as much as a minister of the Word.

To desire vainglory is to desire lies, because when one person praises another he tells lies. What is there in anybody to praise? But it is different when the ministry is praised. We should not only desire people to praise the ministry of the Gospel but also do our utmost to make the ministry worthy of praise because this will make the ministry more effective. Paul warns the Romans not to bring Christianity into disrepute. “Let not then your good be evil spoken of.” (Rom. 14:16.) He also begged the Corinthians to “give no offense in anything, that the ministry be not blamed.” (I Cor. 6:3.) When people praise our ministry they are not praising our persons, but God.

Such is the ill effect of vainglory. Those who teach errors provoke others. When others disapprove and reject the doctrine the teachers of errors get angry in turn, and then you have strife and trouble. The sectarians hate us furiously because we will not approve their errors. We did not attack them directly. We merely called attention to certain abuses in the Church. They did not like it and became sore at us, because it hurt their pride. They wish to be the lone rulers of the church.

Family, Ministry

10 Resolutions for Raising Daughters in the “Go Home” Era of Evangelicalism

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Christian Twitter blew up last week as John MacArthur, a prominent Bible teacher, said that Beth Moore, another prominent Bible teacher, should “go home” primarily because he disagrees with her regarding whether an unordained woman can teach the Bible during a Sunday service. Hardliners on both extremes have caricatured the other side or claimed misunderstandings of both parties. More middling voices have entered the fray, trying to argue for nuance or liberty. But most of the dialogue/monologue I’ve seen speaks in regard to Evangelicalism-wide issues that are beyond my control. My hope is to speak to an issue that is within the scope of my influence: how I, as a father of three daughters, should raise them in light of this “go home” mentality that’s present in some sectors of Evangelical life. To that end, I offer these 10 personal resolutions:

Resolved, to give the benefit of the doubt to women who minister in public. In order to create a healthy environment for my daughters to serve and minister, I want to lead by avoiding caricatures of women who minister and write and serve the church. This would involve more than avoiding slander but also avoiding quick sound-byte caricatures and denigration-by-meme behavior. Instead, I will treat my sisters as innocent until proven guilty of heresy (by confessional standards, not the whims of Twitter). Benefit of the doubt is an aspect of Christian love (1 Cor. 13:7), but it also mitigates against the reality that a large swath of Evangelicalism assumes that women doing public ministry are guilty of false teaching until proven otherwise, and the slightest amount of information that confirms such suspicion will be cited as gospel-truth.

Resolved, to avoid supporting ministers who demean orthodox women. Not every strong complementarian has spoken harshly or dismissively of orthodox sisters in Christ, but those who do will not be quoted favorably by me or given any honor in my household or teaching. While there is space for confronting heretics with boldness and with tears, women who differ with us on secondary matters should never be rebuked as if they have violated primary doctrines of the faith. In order to avoid sending mixed signals to my daughters, men who use positions of power to make these sorts of attacks will be marked and avoided.

Resolved, to support and promote women who minister well. I want my daughters to hear the names of well-aligned women in ministry such as Nancy Guthrie, Jen Wilkin, Jackie Hill-Perry, Trillia Newbell, and many more frequently mentioned in our household. I want them to see orthodox women who aren’t fully aligned with us on secondary and tertiary matters treated with respect and welcomed into the dialogue and bookshelves of our home.

Resolved, to use the Bible and doctrinal statements more than labels such as “complementarian.” While the label “complementarian” has been hijacked by those who see no role for women leading outside the home and church and those who see no vocal ministry for women where men might be able to listen (albeit inconsistent in that practice themselves), I find more stable teaching in the Bible and more helpful systematization in doctrinal statements. Instead of a complementarianism that only portioned off “some teaching” in the Danvers Statement and reserved gender distinctions in the home and for pastoral office in the BFM2000, we find a more restrictive version from its most vocal proponents. Instead of a sort of complementarianism that welcomed an R. C. Sproul who advocated women teachers in many aspects of church life, we find a more sectarian ideology that has calcified an array of male-only avenues of service in the church.* Instead of the Paul who found room for women who prophesied and prayed publicly (1 Cor. 11), encouraged them to participate in mutual teaching in the gathered local assembly (Col. 3:16, cf. v. 18), wanted them to “teach what is good” (Titus 2:3), and relied on them for critical and vocal ministry roles in local churches (e.g., Rom. 16:1–2, 7; Col. 4:15), we find a small window of women’s ministry that primarily relies on a singular interpretation of Paul’s words in 1 Timothy 2 in exclusion from the rest of the Pauline canon. Instead of a Jesus who included women in his ministry in important ways and extended a call for all his disciples to make disciples, baptize, and teach, we find a truncated Great Commission that allows women to only participate in ⅓ of its activities. If the latter is the new meaning of “complementarianism,” then I will not publicly use that label to define my theology even though I assent to the Danvers Statement.

Resolved, to show unequivocal support for the abused and disenfranchised. As women young and old are frequent targets for abuse and inequality, I want to live in such a way that demonstrates that no quarter will be given to injustice or abuse. My words and actions must convey that my daughters can turn to me for support first upon the occasion that they might receive harassment or abuse.

Resolved, to encourage my daughters to use their gifts to the utmost in the home, the church, and in society. Outside of the case that can be made for the male-only pastorate and a unique kind of authority and teaching that comes with that office, I see no biblical restrictions that would restrict my daughters from selflessly exercising their gifts in every sphere of life. To that end, I will do whatever is in my power to help them walk in the Spirit and serve the church in a variety of ways in a variety of spheres.

Resolved, to coach and disciple my daughters to be meaningful disciple-makers and thoughtful theologians. Although never yet having been ordained, I have been blessed with opportunities to pursue doctoral studies in theology, to teach on the mission field, to contribute to published theological works, and even to speak as a lay leader in mixed audiences. Speaking as a dad, these are all opportunities that I hope and would be honored if one or more of my daughters may aspire to in order to serve their brothers and sisters in Christ. Whether they function as disciple-makers and theologians from the home, in the workplace, in the academy, or in the church, I intend to impart whatever training I can in order to make them successful at those tasks.

Resolved, to defend my daughters from misuse of Scripture. I’ve heard 1 Peter used to support requiring a woman to remain with an abusive husband. I’ve heard adult women (but not men) told that they need to submit to their dads until they marry. I’ve heard pastors extend gender roles into the workplace, arguing that women shouldn’t have leadership roles in business and government. As a father, I must proactively dismantle those misapplications of the Bible and help my daughters develop a strong heremeneutical toolkit necessary for them to apply the meaning of Scripture properly.

Resolved, to leave a legacy of healthy, biblical masculinity that neither caves to present culture nor idolizes stereotypes from other eras. I can finish a basement, hit a target, and split wood with the best of them, but I never want my daughters to associate these behaviors with masculinity. I want them to know see in their father a masculinity that restrains power and serves the powerless. I want them to see a dad who loves their mom and loves Jesus. In these ways, I want to counter cultural assumptions (old and new) about how men should behave and live according to the supra-cultural norms of Scripture.

Resolved, to never give the impression that the domestic sphere is the best place for a woman or of lesser significance than other spheres. Complementarians frequently claim or imply that the domestic sphere is the best place for women to minister (“go home”); egalitarians frequently claim or imply that the domestic sphere is a lesser calling (“why would a woman have to give up a career to raise children”). Instead, I want my daughters to know that all spheres belong to God and, as such, are good places to serve others. Should God lead them to use their gifts primarily in the home, that’s a wonderful calling. Should God lead them to use their gifts in the business world, in the church, in the academy, in government, etc., this would be an equally wonderful calling. In no way should women exclusively feel the responsibility of domestic ministry.

Note: I’m fully aware that I have and will fall short of these ideals. I want my friends to know that they may call me out when I do. I’m also fully aware that a group of evangelicals will take issue with being “too soft” on 1 Timothy 2, and I suspect that another group will be upset that I’ve made mention of any gender distinctions in the home or in the church. To both parties, I welcome respectful dialogue on your differences and welcome the opportunity to refine my views on this issue. Grace to you.

*Update (1/30/2020): The teaching video by R. C. Sproul that I initially referenced in this article has unfortunately been removed by Ligonier and the following statement has been posted in its place: “This content has been removed at the request of the Sproul family. Ligonier Ministries cannot account for the date or occasion of the comments, which makes providing a context difficult. The original content was a lecture that was likely delivered in the 1970’s or 1980’s expressing views that do not accurately represent Dr. R.C. Sproul’s later views on the subject.”

Following this statement, they include four links to sources related to the subject of the role of women in the church. I would just like to point out several observations about the suggested resources and this retraction:

  1. Of the two alternate resources written or spoken directly by Sproul:
    • Neither retracts what Sproul taught in the original video regarding the ability of women to teach/preach the gathered church in a Sunday service less the “juridical authority” in back of such spoken ministry.
    • Both underscore what Sproul taught in the original video regarding the particular kind of authority Sproul understood to be off limits to women, namely “juridical authority.”
    • Both deal more with issues of ordination to pastoral office, which has not been the focus of the intra-complementarian debates. But even here, Sproul clearly treats the ordination of women as a secondary issue–one that doesn’t demand separation.
  2. Of the two alternate resources written by others:
    • The first (published while Sproul was still editing Tabletalk) is certainly tighter than Sproul’s original video position, noting that “women are barred from preaching and teaching in worship.” The author then goes on to cite one of the key claims of Sproul in the original video, namely that the authority in the passage is “juridical” or “governing” in nature. We are left to wonder whether Sproul left the devotional note by the contributor (obviously not Sproul) unedited while disagreeing with it, or whether he let it stand because he had changed his position over time.
    • The second (published this year and after the death of Sproul) represents the current orthodoxy of the more restrictive camp of complementarians.
  3. The date of the teaching is hinted at as diminishing the accuracy of Sproul’s beliefs. While we want to give space for peoples’ theology to shift somewhat over time, we should note that (a) the 1980s were the breakout years for Sproul’s ministry, the decade in which he published The Holiness of God, and (b) as indicated related to the previous sources, Sproul never clearly or publicly indicated a retraction or even a modification of his position.
  4. The allegations of “the Sproul family” is intriguing. While they certainly can appeal to private conversation that R. C. Sproul never published regarding his “later views on the subject,” I tend to question the source for several reasons. First, in the 2016 Q&A video that is referenced, Sproul had a late-in-life opportunity teed up to set the record straight on whether a women could speak, teach, or preach in a church. Instead he dealt only with ordination and “juridical authority.” Second, if “the Sproul family” is indicative of self-identified “Christian patriarchalist” R. C. Sproul Jr., I wouldn’t put too much stock in this allegation.
  5. Lastly, and most importantly, this retraction is case-and-point of what I originally claimed in this article, namely that a movement is currently afoot to purge the ranks and create a monolith of “complementarianism” that never existed. Until any further evidence comes to light to the contrary, we should see this move as a bit of 1984 historical revisionism and an unfortunate move to censor modern theologians’ access to the progress of Sproul’s theologizing.
Ministry

Church Tech | Video Distribution

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This article continues a series on church technology, particularly geared toward small to medium-sized churches. The previous article covered video production.

Video distribution is the process of taking a well-produced video and making it available on the web. Let’s look at several different avenues for video distribution and some tips for making the most of each one and some additional observations where needed.

Vimeo

Vimeo is a paid video hosting site that handles large video files in a clean, elegant interface. It’s important to think of Vimeo as a mom-and-pop hardware store. They don’t get a ton of foot traffic, but what they do, they do well. They provide a solid quality product, but you may have to go out of your way to find it. Here are some tips to make the most use of the medium:

  • As with all other platforms, add captions and a thumbnail for the ideal user experience.
  • Customize your embed settings and the player color scheme to match the colors for your ministry.
  • Change up the end screen to feature links, videos, etc.

Because Vimeo is a paid platform, it’s worth considering the pros and cons of using it for your video.

  • Pros
    • Vimeo gives you the most options when it comes to privacy. You can use this to your advantage when shooting video that addresses issues for members or that you want to keep from being embedded on another site.
    • Vimeo is the best ad-free, beautiful, and elegant video streaming player out there, bar none. If you want your video to look good on your site, use Vimeo.
    • Vimeo doesn’t downgrade your video quality, storing even the original video file for you to upload at any time.
    • Vimeo has stepped up its sharing tools, allowing you to push videos from its platform to YouTube and elsewhere with ease.
  • Cons
    • Vimeo is a competitor to Google-owned YouTube, and simply does not perform as well on Google search results as YouTube does.
    • Vimeo is not treated like a “social media platform” like YouTube, so don’t expect the kind of constant exposure that YouTube generates through subscriptions, especially among younger viewers.
    • Vimeo lacks tools for scheduling videos, exporting lists of data, and any sort of robust analytics. For example, I had to have a friend code an app to help me download a list of our videos on Vimeo.
    • Vimeo isn’t cheap. Expect to pay between $20–$99/mo depending on how much video your ministry is uploading. They do have a free plan, but its small upload limit may not be sufficient for a 30–45-minute Sunday sermon depending on its quality.

Facebook

Facebook provides an excellent outlet for all sorts of church video content, but you should be aware of some best practices for that platform:

  • Make sure you have captions and thumbnails, as always. Note that Facebook requires subtitle files (.srt) to have a specific filename structure: name+.en_US+.srt. So, the filename should be sermon.en_US.srt.
  • If you have a video series, upload them in bulk as drafts via Creator Studio. Once they’re uploaded, you can schedule and craft the posts.
  • Figure out peak times for video engagement for your ministry. Usually I’ve found that pre-8:00am, noonish, and post-5:00pm are the best slots for us. Once you find these slots, make it a regular practice to publish specific types of videos at those specific times.
  • Post video natively to Facebook, and do not link off to Vimeo or YouTube unless absolutely necessary (or if you’re cross-promoting those platforms in addition to the video on Facebook). Native video auto-plays and is treated better by Facebook than cross-posted video.

Twitter

Keep this one in mind, but don’t invest too much time in it. You can upload videos to Twitter’s media studio, and add title, description, thumbnail, captions, etc. One unique aspect of Twitter, is that you can add a call to action on this step. From there, you can schedule tweets with those videos. I don’t put a heavy emphasis on Twitter because Twitter is constantly a low-performer when it comes to video minutes watched. It’s simply not a medium where people go to consume video content.

YouTube

The opposite of Twitter, I encourage ministries to invest heavily in YouTube. Here are some best practices and observations you should know:

  1. You can use your personal or work Google account to start a new channel. Use YouTube’s studio to manage uploads, video details, analytics, comments, and more. Make sure that your channel name and description draw on your ministry’s branding and mission statement. Each week, review and respond to comments and follow other likeminded ministries.
  2. Thumbnails and captions are absolutely critical on YouTube. Those thumbnails show up in all sorts of places. A good thumbnail guarantees good traffic. While Google auto-captions videos, those auto-captions are generally quite terrible. Quality captions get crawled by Google, letting the internal content (not just the titles) of those videos show up on Google searches as well as YouTube searches.
  3. End screens should be unique. We talked about this under video production, but you need a unique video file with a special 20-second outro that allows you to point to a subscription section and to other videos. Play around with this before you commission an outro video so you’ll know what to request.
  4. Schedule your videos. The biggest mistake that I see ministries make is that they get excited about YouTube and then they dump all their content onto the platform day one. But YouTube for all intents and purposes is a social media site, not a video storage site. So treat it like that. If you want people to see your content, don’t post more than three items each day. If you have a big backlog of video, count your blessings and schedule them out for the next year or two. Never, ever, ever, dump them all at once just to “build a large channel.”
  5. Use your community feature. Once you start getting subscribers, you can begin sharing posts with text, photos, GIFs, polls, etc. This is a great way to keep your audience engaged with your video content. I try to use this feature to flag a new video series.
  6. Build playlists. You can do this with your own videos or with videos of other ministries. These can be really helpful, especially if you are trying to provide your people with worship music that you tend to use on Sundays or preaching/teaching on key issues. But certainly build playlists of your sermon series. More on that in a sec.
  7. Tag wisely. Choose tags that reflect your “brand” as well as the content of the video. You can set a series of channel tags that will be the default for any videos you post on your channel.
  8. Build out your homepage. Make a featured videos for subscribers and non-subscribers that auto-play on your channel homepage. This will help tell people what you’re about. You can customize the sections of your homepage by grouping your playlists and presenting them as “sermon series” or “teaching series” or “testimonies” for those who land on that channel page.
  9. Weigh advertising carefully. You may eventually reach a threshold where advertising becomes an option for your channel. This creates a revenue stream, but it also clutters up your video with ads. The one upside of advertising is that it unlocks some unique features of YouTube, such as linked cards and links on the end screens. These are quite powerful for steering viewers to your website, books, podcasts, etc.
  10. Write good descriptions. Don’t just echo your video title. Make a description that’s catchy and put links to your site and other relevant resources down below (e.g., study guides, recommended books, landing page on your site, etc.).
  11. Crosspost where you can. Many churches have a strong Facebook following but a poor YouTube subscription audience. Try linking the YouTube videos or subscription link (maybe with a video thumbnail or other picture) to push followers over to YouTube.
  12. Engage with your audience by calling for comments during the video and then interacting with those comments. Don’t engage with trolls.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a great option for video, especially when it comes to reaching the professionals in your church. I may need to come back and revise this section at some point, but my preliminary work with LinkedIn video has limited me to 200MB uploads (even when I’m not selecting anything for advertising). This limits video length substantially. So, if you have a short 1–3 minute video for professionals in the community, this is a great way to do it, and you may end up getting better analytics than you would with Facebook given that LinkedIn is less algorithm-heavy in their newsfeed.

Your Website

Consider making landing pages for each of your sermons that would include the embedded YouTube video, audio links/player, and a full-length transcript of the sermon audio. The key is the transcript. These will get picked up by Google and make inroads on Google searches. The more text content you have on your site around particular topics builds up its site authority on those topics, pushing up your ranking on those search terms.

ORR: Other random recommendations

  • I don’t use HootSuite/Buffer/other schedulers for video for a few reasons. (1) They tend to be more prohibitive with upload sizes (often taking a lowest common denominator approach). (2) They frequently don’t give me as much control over the custom aspects of videos that the native uploaders on the platforms allow me. (3) Videos are such a small aspect of most churches’ social media posting that you’re not really gaining much in terms of efficiency.
  • Watch what performs well and consider how to make repeat wins. Learn the nuances of each platform and its respective audience. Over time, you’ll be able to make the best use of each platform and each video.
  • Find ways to repurpose old content. Maybe a longer video or a panel discussion can be chopped up and released over a month rather than a single video on a single week.
  • Try to distribute new content around particular seasons in the life of the church. Quite literally, videos around Advent and Easter are valuable resources for the church body.

What other insights do you have from your experience distributing video? I’d love to hear your feedback. Any other recommendations or questions you’d like to have answered? Leave a comment, and I’ll address it.

Church, Ministry

Church Tech | Video Production

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This article continues a series on church technology, particularly geared toward small and medium-sized churches. Previous articles have covered Church Management Software options and Online Giving solutions. See also the article on Church Video Distribution.

When it comes to church video solutions, the plethora of options can be overwhelming. Because costs have come down and because new platforms and technologies have brought radical changes even as recently as the past two years (e.g., live video on social media), churches are asking different questions and adopting different solutions. So let’s take a look at some of the common questions pastors and church staff are asking in regard to church video production. We’ll look at video distribution in the next post.

Should we go live on Sunday?

Facebook Live, YouTube Live, and other platforms have dominated the video conversation since 2017. Theoretically, these avenues provide a method for churches to reach further, alerting subscribers when the Sunday morning service is about to begin and giving them a chance to join-in. For small to mid-size churches that are thinking through this question, I’ll offer some quick thoughts:

  1. Think through your theology of the church. For some, this will seem necessary, and for others, this may seem absurd; however, I do think this is an important first step. I’m very pro-tech, and I think we should leverage the technology we have at our disposal for the glory of God. But hear me out on this possible caveat. For all that social media and live video brings to churches to expand their reach (especially on Sunday mornings), there is a flattening that’s happening as well. Social media flattens “community” to cheap interaction via posts and comments. It flattens “friends” as optional connections that don’t hear what we say when we disagree with them. It flattens “dialogue” into short tweets or TL;DR posts. And, in some ways, live video could have the same effect on our Sunday morning worship, particularly in flattening the perception of Sunday worship as an experience that’s equally relevant online as it is in person. But there may be ways to mitigate this if you’re thinking ahead of the curve. Just don’t forget to ask “what do we lose?” in addition to asking “what do we gain?”
  2. Understand monetization and distribution. Many of the churches and church media folks I hear that get excited about live video are attracted by the alleged reach and priority that live videos receive on certain platforms. I’ve personally done a number of well-publicized events on Facebook Live, and have found the reach to be underwhelming (i.e., distribution that was no more effective than regular video posts). YouTube Live has performed better, particularly for multi-day events that can continue to generate momentum across all platforms (pointing to it via Facebook, Twitter, web, etc.). Much of the reach issues that you’ll encounter on these platforms is because the platforms are not egalitarian. They prioritize paid content and incentivize organizations to boost the reach of their videos.
  3. Be aware of copyright issues.  If you’re doing more than singing music written before the 1920s, you are likely performing copyrighted content. There are complex ways of handling this, but for simplicity’s sake and for legal reasons, I would recommend omitting the musical portion of your worship service from the livestream.
  4. Think about engagement and interaction. The best use of a live video is not a camera in the back of the room gathering video content but video where the speaker is engaging with the live comments either during the video or after the video via comments. In other words, best practices for live videos often rule out the way that churches frequently use those platforms for their ministries (i.e., livestreaming a Sunday service). Instead, live video may be a better option for churches to deliver mid-week teaching or discuss events in the life of the church. You should also take a deeper look at analytics for your live videos. The best statistic is not “views” (on Facebook, 3 seconds watched is a “view”, whereas YouTube requires 30 seconds). Instead, look at minutes watched to see an apples-to-apples comparison of your live videos to pre-recorded videos.
  5. Weigh costs and options. There are a range of effective ways to deliver live video with inherent strengths and drawbacks.
    1. Level 1 is shooting live video via mobile phone. The strength here is in its portability and cost. It’s essentially free (you could add the cost of a $20 phone mount to improve quality), and it provides a great informal experience that actually lends itself to the live video platforms. Live video frequently provides a unique “behind-the-scenes” experience for followers that can be lost as production quality escalates.
    2. Level 2 is shooting video via a dedicated live camera. The dominant player in this space is the Mevo camera. For somewhere in the $500–$1000 range, the Mevo provides a great solution for live video. I would strongly recommend taking some time to familiarize yourself with the camera and some of the finicky behavior you’ll encounter from time-to-time before you do your first live video (e.g.,  Facebook Live allows you to go live with privacy settings so only you will see the video). Production quality on the Mevo is significantly higher than via the mobile phone, retains some of the informality of the platform, and provides a cheap fixed-point live video solution for multiple live videos.
    3. Level 3 involves HD video capture that is processed and streamed live via multiple cameras. Level 3 is often a solution that’s only accessible for churches with 7-figure budgets or substantial media teams. Production quality is extremely high, but it’s also important to note the principle of Ockham’s razor: the more cameras, audio equipment, computers, streaming software, etc. that get involved, the more likely it is that something will go disastrously wrong. An organization should only attempt level 3 live production when an experienced team is at the helm who has practiced and built up to this point. Even then, assume that something may still go sideways and sabotage your polished live video production.

What equipment should we use?

We’ve already talked about live video equipment earlier. But if you’re not focused on live video and want some bigger-picture and high-quality solutions for your church video, here are a few considerations.

  1. Know your crew. Your audio/video team is going to have preferences. They’ll have software they prefer working with and camera brands they use throughout the week. Pull them into the decision and try to get their input. At the same time, be careful of strong opinions that don’t get good online reviews or that seem to be out of sync with what other professionals in that space are recommending. You don’t want to invest thousands of dollars to make one of your volunteers happy, only to find out that it’s a terrible solution for everyone else.
  2. Know your budget and your intended use-cases. You can build a great starter kit for your Sunday morning church video needs for under $1k. That would include a DSLR camera like the Canon EOS Rebel SL2 (1080p) or SL3 (4K),  a solid lens,  a high-quality SD card, and a tripod.  If you want to record teaching/training videos or do high-quality announcement videos, you’ll need to add some important items such as a reference monitor that will give you a better idea of the picture you’re capturing, an audio receiver that will feed audio from the speaker directly into the camera (theoretically, a higher quality option is to do audio capture on a separate system and merge the audio and video files later, but this works just fine), a lighting kit,  acoustic panels (you may need around 30 of these 12 sq. ft. packs to fully cover the walls of a small office, but it’s worth it), and a backdrop. So you’re looking at probably around $1k to have a solid starter studio setup. Whatever route you go, you’ll also need to figure-in costs for video production software such as Final Cut or Premiere Pro (which comes with the Adobe CC suite, if you have team members already using Photoshop, etc.).
  3. Know where you’re going. In other words, before you get too deep into purchasing and rolling out new equipment, you should take some time to project 5 or 10 years into the future. Begin discussions with your pastoral and/or staff teams and seeking the Spirit’s guidance on these issues. What would be the ideal presence and posture you want your ministry to have online? What kind of video content do you want to distribute? What level of quality do you want to deliver? Who do you want to reach? Based on your answers to these and other questions, begin crafting an approach to visual media that will attain those objectives. Many churches struggle because they either (1) purchase too much nice gear but fail to have a good strategy for how it will be used to produce content over the long haul, or (2) purchase cheap gear and have lofty ideals about the quality and amount of content they’d like to produce over time. Instead, try to match your budget over the next 5 to 10 years with the kind of content you’d like to produce.

What about “post-production”?

Post-production is that phase between the video capture and the video’s distribution. Several things need to happen during this time if you want to distribute high-quality video.

  1. Add your bumpers. Go ahead and shell out some money to have custom bumper videos created. This should include a short animation of your church’s logo and/or tagline on the front end as an intro. And it should also include a set of two outro/end screen bumpers for the back end of the video. One of these outros should be a standard video end bumper that fairly quickly hits your logo and fades out. Another should be up to 20 seconds long that include a call to subscribe with open areas or designated slots for recommended videos and playlists (here’s one possible template).  The end result will be that you’ll export one video for social media/Vimeo that has the short outro bumper, and you’ll export a second video for YouTube with the longer outro bumper. I would recommend watching videos from other churches and ministries to get an idea of what their bumpers look like.
  2. Add lower thirds. These are elements that include the speaker name, titles, Scripture references, etc. High-quality lower thirds significantly enhance the look and feel of the video.
  3. Make a compelling thumbnail. Currently, YouTube uses a 1280×720 pixel thumbnail. If you use Canva/Photoshop to make images to this specification, you can use it with Facebook and Twitter as well. Some basic principles for thumbnails are:
    1. Make it pop by using bright and contrasting colors.
    2. Include text, but keep it minimum.
    3. Add visual interest with unique still frames or custom photography.
  4. [BONUS] Request captions. Captions are the secret sauce for video distribution, and good captions are essential. We’ll talk about the why and how of captions in the distribution section, but for now it’s important to know that you should immediately request transcripts once the video has been produced. There are two routes you can go here. One option is to request upper-tier AI Transcription (like Temi). You may need a staff member to look through Temi’s transcript to polish up the 10% that’s missed. Standard Human Transcription (like SpeechPad) is the other option. You won’t need to clean up these transcripts much (maybe inaccurate about 1–2% of the time), but they’re also more expensive (about $1.50/min for human transcription vs. $0.10/min for AI transcription). Human transcriptions can take up to a week (or rushed if necessary), so the earlier these can happen, the better.
  5. [BONUS] Burn captions. If you get solid transcripts, you can burn-in captions on your social media videos. Studies show that more and more social media viewers particularly prefer video with captions/text. Burning the captions into the videos ensures that the text is always available, even when someone’s social media settings don’t pull up the auto/uploaded captions.

What kind of content should we create?

Most churches have only one kind of content in mind when it comes to video: the Sunday sermon. It’s the one thing you can bank on every week. But your church should spend some time thinking about other ways to use the investment in cameras and equipment. Here are some possibilities:

  1. Mid-week update videos. This requires either a simple setup or simple live video from a pastor giving updates and prayer requests as an additional touch-point during the week.
  2. Video announcement reel. Most churches put someone on the spot to announce the upcoming events on a Sunday morning. By pre-recording these announcements, you can save time and make them look cleaner and take less time.
  3. Baptism or other testimonies. Shooting baptism testimonies helps convey stories more clearly and provides a resource for the person being baptized to share with their friends online or keep as a reminder.
  4. Special teaching series. Often churches can create training content that is on-par with or better than the off-the-shelf options via Lifeway or Right Now Media. For example, with the investment of a day in a studio, a pastor can record 12 segments at 20 minutes each that can be distributed weekly and used in small group discussions.
  5. Non-English teaching video. I mention this because sound English teaching content is incredibly common on YouTube and around the web. But if you have someone in your church who teaches in Spanish or Korean or Mandarin, these teaching videos could be of great value to the global church. Get creative on how you might be able to use the work your local church is doing to influence the nations online.
  6. Q&A videos. These shorter videos (5–15 min) can be used to answer tough questions, pressing issues, or cultural phenomenon in an easily digestible manner. For some time, the ideal length for these videos was believed to be in the 1–3 minute range; however, most research indicates that well-done videos can easily push into the 5–15 minute range without a major drop-off in viewership.

Do you have questions on church video production that I missed? Or did I overlook a great solution? Please drop a note in the comments! Feel free to comment with your camera equipment (along with purchase links) for those who are looking for alternative setups.

Updates: I’ve been answering some questions since I wrote an article on livestreaming for TGC. Here are some answers to some technical questions I’ve received:

  • We’d like to have multiple people leading a livestream event from different locations. How should we do this? Given that Google killed off Hangouts streaming and Facebook killed off “Live With,” I would do one of the following three options:(1) Free with OBS: Download OBS, download and set up Skype. Enable NDI in OBS. Enable NDI in Skype. Pull the Skype call into OBS. Hook up OBS broadcast with your YouTube account. Invite contributors to your Skype call. Go live. The risk is that setting up NDI is pretty tricky and it’s going to take some extensive time and trial runs to get this right.
    (2) Paid with ECamm Live. Pay for ECamm subscription ($12/mo). Download ECamm and Skype. Pull-in Skype call and invite others. Hook up with your YouTube account and go live. Far less technical challenges than the OBS route.
    (3) Paid with Zoom. Since you are already using Zoom and potentially already have a paid account ($15/mo), you need to add the “webinar” feature for $40/mo. From there you can set up your contributors, hook up your YouTube account, and go live as you would with a normal Zoom call.

    If you have $55/mo, I would definitely consider the Zoom route for stability and for familiarity. If you’re okay with paying a little, but $55/mo is too much, go with ECamm. If you have a pretty techy crew, I would look into OBS.

  • Do I need to use OBS or other streaming software if I’m just going to use the webcam on my Mac? No, not if you are only broadcasting to a single distribution type (Facebook or YouTube, not both) via a single device with built-in camera. You can go directly to YouTube, set up a channel, wait 24 hours, and go live. Facebook doesn’t have a waiting period like YouTube, so if you’re in a hurry, Facebook Live is a good choice. You can also go live on Facebook using the webcam on your computer.
  • What if internet signal, power, etc. are a problem for livestreaming, but we still want to preserve some sort “live feel” for a service, even though it will be entirely remote for a season? One idea is to pre-record the sermon and announcements, release that recording on Facebook and YouTube at a scheduled time. The inactive YouTube link can be sent to your congregation in advance, allowing them to begin watching on Sunday morning. Encourage them to meet together in homes if possible. Then, in the afternoon or evening, pastors can initiate a Facebook Live, YouTube Live, or Zoom call for congregants to ask questions about the message, share prayer requests, etc.
  • What is the best solution for a livestream that includes Powerpoint or Keynote slides?  (1) Download OBS to your PC/Mac (free). (2) Set up the main scene by pulling in a camera (ideally one that’s physically attached to the PC/Mac and is high quality). This is the speaker-focused view. (3) Set up a secondary scene that includes a view of the Powerpoint via Window/Display capture. This can be a full-screen view that cuts away from the speaker, or it can be a portion of the screen that overlays the camera feed of the speaker. Either the speaker or (better) a tech team member can run the slides. (4) The speaker or (better) a tech team member can cut between the two scenes as needed throughout the message. (5) Schedule your live event on YT/FB and copy the “stream key.” (6) Paste the stream key into OBS, select “start streaming” to sync OBS with YT/FB, and then select “go live” on YT/FB. (7) At the end of the stream, click “stop streaming” in OBS and “end live” in YT/FB.
  • We’re thinking about doing a “drive-in” service, where we would project the teaching on a large screen. What’s the best solution for audio? The easiest arrangement would be some sort of outdoor amplification. The more creative solution would be a cheap, low-power FM (LPFM) transmitter (like this one). You would need a LPFM license from the FCC.