9 Smart & Simple Ways To Use Facebook Live For Your Church
I’ve been using Facebook Live now for some time for my church. I also use it to a lesser degree for my personal Facebook feed. Recently I did some coaching with some church leaders in England and thought I would also give you some quick tips and ideas on how you can use it for your church.
Before we dive in read here how you can get the best out of Facebook Live here. If you are a church leader, here is the why you need to jump on board the Facebook Live train right now!
- Show your church service. You have enough content ideas in your service. Show some worship. Stream the sermon or communion.
- Go behind the scenes. Take people to places that show how your church works. Show them the real heroes like volunteers or into areas they don’t know that exists.
- Rehearsal. Show the fun side of rehearsals.
- Staff meetings. Give a behind the curtain peep at ministry life.
- Celebrate volunteers. Creating a volunteer culture is so important. Celebrating people is just as important. Do a short interview with a volunteer. Cover the Why, What and How they serve then thank them!
- Devotion. speak words of life into people’s feeds through sharing your devotional thoughts.
- Speak into community issues.
- Announcements. Minor on this, but if you have exciting news, use Facebook live to share it.
- Share a testimony or story.
Remember you will be live so there are NO second chances. Read this previous post on how to set yourself up for success so that you get the most out of your Facebook Live experience.
Your Turn
Do you use Facebook live for your church and want to share some advice? Do you have questions about how to use Facebook Live? Leave a comment below.
Very good stuff, bro! I sometimes will do a pre-service prayer with people over FB Live using my “Pastor Brandon Cox” page. It’s a huge blessing to see how many people tune in and type an “Amen” to the prayer.
Great idea Brandon!
We are officially starting today using Facebook live church wide at firstchurchdsm. We have our lead pastor who will be answering questions that we have taken in over the past few weeks from congregation members for a behind the scenes type feel coming from his office.
Keep the good content a coming.
Good to hear from you Todd! Great that you are starting to use it. Let me know how you go! 🙂
In step one you mention showing some of your worship. How do you do this without Facebook flagging you for copyrighted material? Our church as well as many others I’m sure don’t play original music all the time.
Hey, Steve,
Do you have guidelines for churches to know what is legally okay to do on Facebook? I.e. I see you said “some worship” and “sermon”. My understanding is there are some things that would be copyrighted that should NOT be posted online, such as third party videos, background music/tracks, etc. What is the best resource for copyright compliance information for churches?
Hi Sandy, CCLI offer streaming licences in the USA. Check the details to see if it covers you on social. If you create your own worship then you are obviously free to post what you like.
Having the pastor do a quick shout out during set up about what today’s message will be about is another great one.
Great idea Kenny!
Love the ideas. I am going to get my Pastor started by asking him to do a live Christmas blessing.
Great article Steve! Do you see a shift into using Facebook live or similar social media services to broadcast live worship as a replacement for dedicated services that are generally hosted on church websites? We’re not doing anything with streaming right now, but it seems that Facebook’s combination of cost (free), simplicity (a smartphone gets you online) and viewership makes it a game changer in the area of live worship broadcasting.