What Is Live Streaming?

Freshwater is starting to live-stream services on September 6th. We have heard many comments affirming this decision and a few people have even said “live-streaming will be great, but what exactly is live-streaming?” That is an honest question and unless you live in the tech world, you might not know.

Live-streaming is simply broadcasting services over the internet instead of broadcasting over the airwaves. When you watch football or the news it is broadcast over the airwaves in real time (or really close to live time). Broadcasting over the air is very expensive and you need specialty equipment to do it. One of my friends who broadcast’s over the air budgets to spend $750,000 on technology at each campus to make it happen. That’s a crazy amount of money to us. At Freshwater, we don’t have that kind of money. So we decided to live-stream our services over the web because it only cost us a few thousand to get set up with the technology.

This is how it works. Whichever campus I (or someone else) is speaking at, we will use the video camera to instantly send the video to the other campus where they will be able to see it on the big screen. If I am speaking live in St. Boni, the people in Waconia will see and hear the same message at the same time. If I am speaking in Waconia, the people at St. Boni will hear and see the same message at the same time. I plan to even have a small monitor showing me the opposite campus. All music, kids programs, and special announcements will be live just like they are now.

Live streaming has other benefits as well:
·Older members who are no longer able to make it to worship services every week will be able to view live services online.
·People recovering from illness or an operation and are confined to their home can still be a part of the service.
·People with contagious illnesses like cold or flu who don't want to risk of infecting others can stay home and stay connected.
·Snowbirds who want to stay connected to their congregation all year round.
·A member who is out-of-town for vacation or business and wants to stay connected.
·Youth away at college who want to stay connected.
·Missionaries who want to stay connected with their home church.
·Special speakers will be seen live or in real time by everyone.

Some people might not want to watch the speaker on a screen and that’s understandable. The good news is that we will be posting the location where the pastor will be speaking live. In our case, our campuses are five miles apart so you can just drive to the other campus. But for most people this is not a problem. If you have any other questions, feel free to contact myself or any other staff member. Our vision is to courageously share the life-changing love of Jesus Christ in a real, relevant, and relational manner. By utilizing live-streaming technology, we are taking another step forward to in order to reach everyone in our region with the Gospel.