The Great Plains Conference’s video streaming platform is off and running.
The first church to use the platform — found at www.greatplainsumc.church — is Nebraska’s Dorchester UMC.
“It’s very user-friendly and very straight forward,” said Matthew Hoffman, audio-visual tech for the church, which began using the platform Nov. 21.
The Dorchester church had previously streamed its services through Facebook Live.
“It opened the door to many others who have an internet connection but not a Facebook account,” Hoffman said.
Todd Seifert, conference communications director, said the platform opens opportunities to open the virtual front door of the church to more people.
“The platform allows churches with a fast enough upload speed to present their worship services to three platforms at one time,” he said. “One is our platform, and one could be either Facebook or YouTube. But the key is for one of those to be the church’s website. By placing your livestream on the church’s website, now people viewing there can click links on the page to see whatever else the church has going on — from special events to the regular times for such things as youth ministry and mission in the community.
“It helps people see what else is going on at your church beyond worship as another means of outreach to people who tune in to worship.”
Hoffman said he was a fan of the concept, where all of the churches who are part of the network can be on the same website.
“I also think it’s beneficial for us to have a common language within the districts as well as a common platform which to share that,” he said.
A second church, Leawood UMC, is set to start on the platform this weekend, said Eugenio Hernandez, multimedia producer and the creator of Great Plains UMC TV.
“The platform works perfectly, 100%, so I’m super happy about that,” Hernandez said.
Hernandez said 41 churches have registered on the site to be a part of the platform, but only four have subscribed, meaning they are up and running on the platform, so far.
Subscriptions will take effect once the payment is received, he said. A link to make the payments is a greatplainsumc.church – not greatplainsumc.org – and will take effect the next day.
“It’s just a couple of clicks and they’re ready to go,” Hernandez said.
Contact David Burke, content specialist, at dburke@greatplainsumc.org.
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