To Live Stream or Not to Live Stream

“We need to live stream this Sunday.”

Those words I heard on a snowy Friday morning in the early Spring of 2020 changed my ministry and church for the foreseeable future. Just a couple days later, our worship “together” would be mediated by screens for the first time in our history. Save for a small handful of musicians, pastors, and technicians, our sanctuary was all but empty. No faces. No voices. Just a couple of cameras poised to usher us into a completely new and unprecedented era of ministry.

Some churches had already been live streaming their services, while others relied solely on personal smartphones or eleventh-hour MacGyver-ing to survive that first Sunday of the COVID pandemic. Our church was neither ill-equipped nor under-prepared for that first live-stream Sunday, but the pandemic finally compelled us to jump into the pool after a long period of toe-dipping. At this significant moment in evangelical history, technology provided an opportunity to overcome a barrier to worship and fellowship. Given the choice between something or nothing, many churches chose the former.

Though the question of “to livestream or not to live stream” is no longer as pressing a matter as in those days, the values and risks of this technology remain just as important to consider. We might easily recognize the value inherent in a technology that allows our people to be “together while apart” (like the telephone introduced to the world). But we should also be wise to the ways in which technology can just as easily erode a rock-solid foundation.

The value

The church, rightly named, is called out of the world to gather as a new community. We are one Body, sharing one common faith, following one Lord, and summoned to gather regularly together for worship, fellowship around the Gospel, mutual encouragement, and devotion to God’s Word. It’s no wonder that the Apostle Paul so regularly wrote of his desire to be physically present with fellow believers throughout his ministry (Romans 1:11, 15:23; 1 Thessalonians 2:17, 3:10; 2 Timothy 1:4). Like him, we miss our spiritual family when we are apart and yearn to be present with them. We long for any opportunity to reconnect but ultimately to see our spiritual brothers and sisters face to face.

As pen and parchment and Roman roads allowed Paul some semblance of connection with the churches, live streaming has also proven its worth connecting distant members of local bodies for times and seasons when they must be apart. Those who are temporarily sick, homebound, or traveling find live streaming a great benefit because they don’t have to forsake the inherent qualities and devotional rhythm of weekly worship and preaching. We all get colds, and we all take vacations. What a blessing live streaming provides to us in these natural and irregular moments of absence from our church family.

For others, this benefit is not only expectational but also vital for maintaining the most basic connection to their church. Those permanently homebound saints who cannot visit the assembly on Sundays due to poor health would have no other exposure to the gathered Body were it not for the resource of live streaming. For them, something rather than nothing is the only thing regarding the gathering. The same can be said for congregants deployed by the military or other members whose vocations require them to be away from home for weeks or even months. In their professions, “temporary” is a relative term.

Nevertheless, some tie to their familiar and spiritual family is like a spiritual lifeline. They would be the first to admit that a live stream is nothing like the real thing. And yet, they would not choose to do without it.

Another added value of live streaming is to the newcomer. In the not-to-distant past, first-time visitors to your church were just that – first-time visitors! With the advent of livestream technology, people can assess a church’s worship and practical theology from afar. In other words, those looking for a new church home can examine multiple churches quickly without waiting from one Sunday to the next. Anecdotally, our church has found that first-time visitors to our Sunday gathering have been more enthusiastic and “aware” since we began live streaming our services. They have already been getting to know us online, so their first visit is not a wholly foreign experience.

The value of live streaming is that it provides a window into the local church where once there was a wall. It allows church members and church seekers some visibility into the fellowship, and in this way, it stimulates a longing to be present – to be face-to-face. This technology encourages embodied fellowship. The great risk, however, is its susceptibility to replacing that kind of fellowship.

The risks

The Bible teaches that church is meant to regularly meet together (Matthew 18:20, 1 Corinthians 14:26, Hebrews 10:24-25). Though many technological advancements throughout the centuries have allowed people to see, hear, and communicate with one another from afar, there is still only one way to be physically present with another person. With the advent of the internet, the idea of “community” has slowly been redefined. What people shared in “common” included many things, but most especially space or physical proximity. Nowadays, however, the new definition of community does not require physical presence since we can mediate almost every other aspect of community through technology.

From its very inception, the church community required physical presence, and each church was defined by its location in a particular place. So, we see the first church in Jerusalem, including all the believers living there, interacting in many ways only possible by living near or even with one another (Acts 2:42-47). Though live streaming can provide the opportunity to see a community and facilitate some aspects of that community, it cannot meet the full mark of community without sacrificing what the Bible deems essential – physical connection.

The first risk of live streaming is that instead of encouraging people to gather, it might encourage them to stay apart by redefining Biblical community. If the church does not gather as prescribed by the Scriptures, then many of the “one another’s” of scripture cannot be accomplished. Living together requires much more time, energy, patience, and sacrifice than a mediated, online “community” does. This is by God’s design, and our adherence to that design is ultimately for our benefit (regardless of whether we see it as beneficial or not).

Another subsequent risk of live streaming is that it can easily misrepresent our worship. Because this technology requires the reproduction of sound and sight, it gives us the power to create an experience that will always be more or less than the real thing. For example, how often have you said, “This picture doesn’t do it justice,” when sharing a spectacular, scenic photo you snapped? Likewise, have you ever combed through dozens of unedited selfies to find the one you felt was most “accurate” to how you see (or perhaps want others to see) yourself? Both scenarios prove the point that perception and reality are not the same. No technology can exactly reproduce an embodied experience. They will either come up short or overshoot the real thing.

Knowing this reality, we risk mispresenting, at best, or manipulating, at worst, the worship experience of the gathered church. A church with robust technological resources – the best cameras, recording software, and plentiful technical staff – can produce and craft a live stream that rivals or outshines the actual experience. In contrast, a church of humbler means streams a service rife with distorted audio, missing visual elements, and a poorly lit and grainy camera shot. Both churches are in the same predicament – they are slaves to the medium. With the former, the risk is manipulation. With the latter, the risk is misrepresentation. Unfortunately for both, the medium doesn’t care about its user’s motives.

The last risk worth acknowledging is the propensity of live streaming to encourage a consumer mentality. Consumerism requires that the providers of some “supply” (in this case, those who plan the worship service) respond appropriately to “demand” or the needs of the consumer (in this case, the online viewer, whoever they are). What happens is that leaders in the church, if they are not careful, slowly begin to forfeit their leadership and allow the medium to influence the church’s message. Instead of ordering worship elements and the gathering according to scriptural principles, church leaders begin to cater to the congregation’s demands. Even worse, the embodied group of gathered believers begins to see their experience reshaped by the needs of the absent online community. In that sense, the proverbial tail wags the dog.

The response

These are the real risks of live streaming: redefinition, misrepresentation, and manipulation. They are significant risks precisely because of the medium’s power, which we readily acknowledge has great value when directed appropriately. Therein lies the key in our response to both the value and risks of live streaming. The task is to admit the realities of what live streaming can and cannot do. Live streaming is a great window, but windows are not meant to be doors. This medium gives us insight into what’s happening in a Spirit-filled community, but it cannot replicate it. Something essential, namely physicality, is always lost in the process.

Livestreaming is also a like a path to an incredible destination. Done well, done discerningly, and upon the firm foundation of sound theology and ecclesiology, live streaming can accomplish much towards pointing people to the beauty of what God designed the church to be. Pastors, be aware of what your livestream ministry (or lack thereof) communicates about your church, who it serves, and who it doesn’t serve. The staff in the hand of the shepherd can protect, correct, or harm the sheep. May the Lord guide you to use the resource of live streaming to shepherd well the flock that He has entrusted to you.

©2023 Jon Gilmore. Used with permission.