Encourage families with Facebook Live and other live stream services, such as IGTV or Zoom (read about them here). During social distancing, churches, teachers, and community organizations are finding that these are useful tools for creating connection with families. Ministers may use these tools to encourage families in your ministry. This article will focus on Facebook Live, but, may be applied to any of the live stream products. Facebook Live and IGTV are convenient for families because they are likely on those networks and will at least see the saved version of your livestream.
Ministers have quickly embraced these options in order to easily connect with families who are isolating themselves to prevent the spread of Covid-19. Facebook Live or IGTV (Instagram) may be two of the most simple tools at your disposal. Record a video, post it, and it is saved. So, families can watch live or the can watch later. The choice is theirs. I believe that this period of social distancing is forcing churches to consider the best way to reach busy families and digital natives, even when times are normal, and hopefully we will become more effective at ministering to children and their families.
Why Create a Digital Community
Churches have struggled for years to decide how they might connect with the on-the-go family. Church leaders lament that families are pulled in many directions and often miss church. In fact, in a recent article on ChurchLeaders.com cites statistics from Barna that says practicing Christians, who consider their faith as very important, attend church at a minimum once per month. The article’s author, Dale Hudson, reflects
This proclamation is challenging. When the most committed people are the ones who come at least once a month, we have a lot of work to do. This confirms our theories that families are attending less often for sure.
He gives some interesting reasons for the decline in church attendance, many of which will not be the focus of this article. But, he does offer some suggestions to encourage families, including creating community!
When Hudson wrote his article, he probably never imagined that community would need to be created through digital media in order to keep people safe.
Love also compels us to create nurture community using the technology at hand, including Facebook Live or IGTV.
How to Encourage Families Using Facebook Live
Facebook Live is fairly easy. In fact, many people us it to stream their children’s swim meets, concerts, or first baby steps. It is simple to do from your phone. But, before you hop into recording for your church, consider a few things.
- Lighting: are you sufficiently lit, do you need to turn on a lamp, close the blinds, or turn off the overhead lights to be seen in the video?
- Audio: your first choice should be to use a microphone. I use a simple and cheap one from Amazon. Be sure you have the correct adaptor for your phone. Another option is to use a split lapel mic, they have two microphones but one plug, so two people can be on video. If you don’t have a mic, no worries, just talk as you normally would on a phone video. Watch out for background noise though.
3) Tripod/Stand: no one enjoys a shaky video that reminds them of a downhill run or their last cruise. Use a tripod to keep your phone still. Don’t have a tripod? Experiment. Stack some books and make a stand. I’ve seen some cool pictures of improvised solutions.
4) Script: know what you want to say. It doesn’t have to be perfect but avoid the awkward pause, stares into the distance, and rambles that come with shooting from the hip.
5) Finally, press record.
Facebook provides a simple guide for using Facebook Live at this link.
Facebook Live: What to say to parents and kids in your ministry
Encouraging your families using Facebook Live is easy. Start simple. Keep it short enough to keep their interest, which might depend on your goals. Here are some examples I’ve seen in the last week.
1) Encouragement: these are simple “hey, I’m still here and you are doing great” kinds of messages.
2) Instruction: what do you need to teach children? Families? Think about your hallway conversations that you have at church, what would a parent ask you today, record that information.
3) Personal stories: stories create relationship. Tell a story. I saw someone record in their office because kids may not have seen their office before. Get your family involved. Be silly.
4) Speciality shows: several ministers that I follow have created their own speciality show, from science demonstrations, to are projects, or even wacky puppet shows, this is a good way to draw on kids interests while connecting it with Christian living.
4) Devotionals: a lot of ministers are recording short devotionals for families at home. These are more simple than a full-scale production that a church might focus on for a once a week “show”. Use Facebook Live to fill in the gaps.
5) Challenges: this is a popular one. Challenge families to a scavenger hunt, to read their favorite Bible story together, to draw pictures to show to their friends or even to talk about their life while social distancing. Be CREATIVE!
Creating Community with Facebook Live
Important Tip: privacy is an important issue when creating community on social media. Since children are involved, I suggest that you set up a private Facebook group for families only. If you don’t plan on children responding then put the video on your personal or church’s public timeline. This is a great options for encouraging messages or Bible stories.
Finally, let’s deal with the obvious, community requires conversation and interaction. If you are just recording videos, it is a one-way street. Instead, consider adding conversation starters to your videos. Challenges are a great example, in order to “win” a challenge the family has to record a message back. Or comment. Or send a picture.
If you are teaching a Bible lesson, invite them to comment with questions. You see this as you record your video. Since all Facebook Live videos are saved, you can rewatch it later and answer questions that you didn’t get to during your broadcast.
Invite parents and children to send topics in advance and answer those during your recording.
Before you start your broadcast, ask yourself, “how is this broadcast inviting people into relationship?”
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