Christ Church Healey received a Church for a Different World digital award for its progress in developing livestreaming capability and for creating resources to assist other churches in adopting this technology easily and quickly.
Prior to the lockdown Christ Church Healey had a digital presence on social media and church websites, but no livestreaming capability. They set about establishing a livestreaming capability to broadcast their regular church services. They chose Open Broadcaster Software (OBS) for streaming and hosted the services on the Twitch.tv platform. Initially they used a single laptop and experimented and improved each week, following helpful criticism from the congregation.
Members of the congregation were involved in creating the content for the broadcast by sending videos of themselves reading or doing intercessions – reproducing as near as possible the feel of all member ministry.
Congregation member, Jeff Ormerod, also created a portal that enables church members to access all the online offerings from the church quickly and easily. This was particularly appreciated by elderly members who had little previous experience with using technology.
Revd Gill Barnett, Priest-in-Charge, said, “We chose to continue livestreaming after lockdown and enhanced our offering by the purchase and installation of livestreaming equipment in church. We continue to develop this provision, but throughout this process our focus has always been on making the technology as easy as possible to use, both for those operating the equipment and producing the broadcast material, and for those watching the broadcasts.”
The church created a video caled Our Digital Journey to chart their digital journey so far, and is happy to offer assistance to other churches who need help getting started using OBS. They have also made their collection of online hymns available for others to use.
Conscious that many other churches have varying degrees of technical capability amongst their members, Christ Church were keen to share their expertise with others. This includes the use of multiple cameras, microphones and the compilation of all the multimedia elements of the service within the OBS software.
