We know many churches had to scramble last week to get live streaming up and running for Sunday services! It was so great to see so many of you pull together and make it happen without much notice.
For those still trying to figure out how to do a service together online, here are a few ideas 💡and the licensing needed to be legal.
#1 With new restrictions and recommendations of social distancing being put into place, the safest thing to do would be to have music recorded with just one musician.
#2 Any music that goes online needs to be licensed. There is a different license if you are streaming live, or if you are posting a recording of someone else's song not live. Please make sure you're doing it legally. The live streaming license is much easier and might already be included into your current CCLI license. Visit https://au.ccli.com/streaming/ Any song that is listed as Public Domain is okay to use, and of course any song that your church owns (eg a member wrote and gives permission to post) is okay as well. #3 A way to put together a whole service while each person is in their own location is to pre record each element and send together to edit as one service, then upload it as a live stream at your regular service time.
There are a couple of FREE ways to then post those pre-recorded services as a 'live' stream. Head to https://churchonlineplatform.com/ to set this up online. You can then share the link to facebook, but it won't be 'facebook live' - but it will be live to your website.
OR you can also use Youtube Premiere or Facebook Premiere.
Make sure you don't save those videos or repost them, as that becomes covered by the different (expensive and complicated) license, doing it this way requires a streaming license as discussed in #2.
Be kind to each other in the process of worshipping together through online means, sounds isn't going to be perfect, there might be lag and it won't sound as polished as your 'normal Sunday', but singing together in praise of our great God doesn't require perfection