Page 22 - MyFaith Mag February 2017 PRINT
P. 22
change revolution
YOU’RE A CHURCH. SO WHY AREN’T
YOU LIVE STREAMING?
PHIL COOKE
There’s a persistent myth about church live streaming that more donations online than the congregation gave in the
needs to be put to rest: the idea that once you go live on- offering plate! That’s unusual, but it does happen.
line, your members will stop coming to the services. Nothing
could Think for a minute about former members of your church
who have moved, but would like to stay in touch. Students
be further from the truth. I don’t have statistics, I can only who have left for college, business people in the congre-
give you my experience with the hundreds of churches gation who travel. Missionaries you support. I can tell you
we’ve worked with around the world. Over and over, as we that whenever my wife and I are on the road on a Sunday
help churches live stream their services, their actual Sun- morning, she always opens up the laptop and watches the
day attendance in the building goes up. In other words, live streamed service from our church.
putting your services out there online for others to see, actu-
ally draws more to the Sunday service. The bottom line is there are millions of people outside the
walls of your church that need to hear your message.
There are plenty of amazing live stream stories. I was speak- Certainly you won’t reach all of them with your online ser-
ing at a pastor’s conference in Oklahoma this year and vice, but the fact is, if you’re holding back from doing a
met one pastor who preaches to 700 people in his congre- live stream, you won’t reach anyone beyond those walls. If
gation. But his live stream is viewed by an average of 10,000 you’re a pastor or church leader interested in live stream-
people each week. ing, ask any questions in the comment box, or contact our
team. We want to see your message reach as many peo-
We worked with a large church in the Southeast who actu- ple as possible, and a live stream is a relatively inexpensive
ally gets as much as one third of their total income from their and effective way to make that happen.
live stream audience. In fact, one Sunday the pastor called
me excited to share that the previous Sunday, they received
