Engaging the Audience

Courtesy of Audience Matters, Inc.

We recently added overlays to our live stream service to help engage the audience and it seems to be going great. We have received positive comments on it from our online and live attenders so far and the process has been easy. To give a bit of a background as to what we're doing at HCC, we have been running a live internet service for about three years now and we have tried just about everything within our budget to build and engage our audience. We're using a simple setup of about three cameras, a video switcher, streaming software, and presentation software to pull our live streaming service off three times a week. About three weeks ago we added the presentation software, ProPresenter, to help with the overlays and that has helped us tremendously with engaging both our online audience and our live church attenders. 

By adding the overlays we are eliminating the constant switching from the main screen with the lyrics or PowerPoint presentation to the different camera angles, which was way too much movement for a production. By adding lower thirds to the screen we can have the words and the live cameras on the same screen and we can concentrate on switching our camera angles when needed. Switching to too many different elements, we found, was losing our audience whether than engaging them. Adding the lower thirds to the live video not only engages the audience but gives them the sense that they are a part of the service instead of being spectators. 

When considering setting up an live stream or adding new creative elements to your services the first question you should always ask is how can we engage our audience when doing this or how will this engage our audience if we add this element? Answering this question will help save a lot of headaches and money down the road. 

Building Multi-Site Campuses

I always like to include posts that are about topics that I am currently researching for work or are in the process of putting into action myself. In April my church is launching its second satellite campus in a small town about 30 minutes from our main campus. We want to model the second satellite campus after our first one which is located in a local prison and has been extremely successful but know that each area is demographically and culturally different. Our first satellite campus which we refer to as an Internet Campus or iCampus is a simple setup of a projector, portable sound system, projector screen, a laptop, and a hot spot. Basically, we stream our live services into the satellite campus and have a pastor available to facilitate the service. The challenges we are facing are not with a building and equipment but if the setup will be successful in this new area, if the people in the town would be as receptive as those in our first campus.

When brainstorming challenges we might face in this new campus, we ask ourselves if people would come to a church service that is being projected on a screen versus having a live service. Are we losing the relational aspect of a church by doing this? These are great questions to consider when building multi-site campuses. There are many churches that have built successful multi-site campuses and are continuing to do so as their churches grow. In researching many ways to start a satellite campus I have looked at other churches as examples and have talked with their staff and have looked at companies that have helped churches as well. ProPresenter is a great company that offers solutions to churches that are wanting to start multi-site campuses.

Right now it is a trial and error process to see what will and will not work but in the end it will be awesome to see what kind of satellite campus we end up starting. I will do a follow-up post in April that outlines what worked and what didn't.