A New Twist to an Old Trick
I grew up in a small, rural Methodist church. I have a memory from those days of seeing an old tweed covered speaker up near the ceiling. My natural curiosity directed me to ask someone what the speaker was used for. I was informed that it had been used to pipe the preacher’s sermon into the nursery on Sunday morning so that the ladies working there didn’t have to miss out. I was also informed that it no longer worked due to recent upgrades in the sound system. I’m willing to bet the speaker is still there, though I don’t know if it works or not.
Many, if not all, churches offer a nursery of some type in order to keep screaming kids out of the service… I mean to enable parents to attend the worship service. Some churches also have a desire to have their service content served to other parts of the church; perhaps the front lobby.
Now, before I go further I have to issue a disclaimer: I have not tried any of this yet, though I know Jeremy succeeded through this post here. What I am about to present is a theory based on reading reviews and manuals for a nifty little piece of tech that recently became available. No matter if it worked flawlessly or went horribly wrong, I want to hear from you!
Let’s start with some assumptions. The pre-requisites in order to use this method are a decent Wi-Fi network with a solid ISP, one or more TVs with HDMI, and a live stream of your service to the internet (perhaps like this).
Once you have that ironed out, add the key ingredient: Google’s Chromecast.
The Chromecast loosely resembles a USB thumb drive. It’s a little bigger and has a HDMI connector where the thumb drive would have USB. There is a USB connection, however it is on the side and used only to power the device. The scope of this post does not include initial setup of the Chromecast, though I’m sure Google includes fantastic instructions. Once you’ve connected a Chromecast to each TV to which you want to display your service, simply use the directions included with the device to point it to you streaming URL.
Things to Consider
Just as I said in this post: test test test. The Chromecast costs $35 USD so, if it won’t break the bank, get one and start playing with it. Like I said in the disclaimer, this is all theory until someone tries it. I hope to have one soon, and will post an update as soon as I learn more. Also, if the number of viewers on your stream is a big deal for you, and you like to be accurate, each Chromecast will be a separate viewer. Use that as you see fit. And lastly (as far as I can think right now) keep in mind that the signal is travelling from your media team to the internet, to Google, to YouTube (or whatever streaming service you use), then to the Chromecast. That means there will be some delay, if only a few seconds. If the TVs are located somewhere that you can also hear the pastor then it may sound like an echo.
Where it Fits
This is largely an internal ministry tool. The primary use is to allow your volunteers to still take in the message while performing their duties, assuming it is safe and logical for them to do so. The only time I see this being and external ministry tool is if a first time guest wonders into your lobby mid-service. They’ll be able to hear the pastor without having to muster up the courage to be “that guy/gal” opening the squeaky door right when the pastor is hitting his well-crafted peak for maximum audience impact. You know we’ve all been there. Some of us on both sides. Personally, I attacked our squeaky door with WD40 the next chance I had, but I digress.
Your Turn!
What do your think? Is this idea appealing to you or your ministry? Do you see faults? Let me know and let’s discuss!
Jesse Gruber says
WHY HAVE I NOT THOUGHT OF THIS. Great idea and I see no reason this shouldn’t work!
Jesse Gruber says
Now that I think of it, we use hangouts to stream our service every week. I do know one week my mom was sick and casted the livestream to her TV so it should be fine within church walls as well.
David R. Slentz says
We are setting up a nursery and would like to have a Live Audio/Video feed to our Nursery.
Budget: Under $500
Our new nursery is located just about 10 or 20 feet behind our Sound System, so distance is not a difficulty, and the camera could be operated right inside the Sound platform also.
We would like to set up a Flat Panel TV in the Nursery which can then serve TWO purposes – Showing DVD’s during Sunday School time or other occasions AND the Main Service by live feed.
My thought is simply to use a portable video camera for the video and audio. If audio needs to be of better quality, we could take a direct line right from the PA System.
HERE ARE MY QUESTIONS:
(1) What would be the best choice for a portable video camera which would allow us to take a signal out of it directly to a Flat Panel TV in the nursery in order to get the live audio feed? (This camera could also be used at other times for recording special events, etc. — so a “baby” video monitor type of system would not be our choice)
(2) What kind of Flat Panel should be used (probably only need a 32 inch or whatever fits under our $500 budget) and what a/v connections should it have?
(3) What kind of cable should be used for the audio and video? And will any other connections be necessary?
Thanks for your help in advance!
David R. Slentz
Randall Perry says
Chromecasts are not the best tool for this task. While I had initially rolled out Chromecasts for waiting rooms (doctor offices) for patient education videos… I have found them to not be reliable (especially for streaming video).
So I use Chromecast devices at the church ONLY for pushing announcements out.
We still push the live service around the church through a modulated channel. (which, even though I have a couple spare blonder tongue head end channel banks at my office…I am moving it all to switched HDMI).
Hardwiring TV’s will last for years and will not need fiddled with by anyone to keep it running.
Mark says
Is there not a way to just hard wire a feed from the camera to the remote rooms?
Christy says
TC,
This seems like a great way to get the feed to other rooms. I thank you so much for sharing this info.
I have extreme chemical sensitivity brought to its worst by lyme disease and have not been able to attend church for going on a year. The perfume is so strong that it has caused me to go into a seizure before and near seizure many, many times. Thankfully I am seeing some improvement but still the Sunday morning service is so filled with people who use these products that I am unable to stay.
I have asked that a fragrance/chemical free room be set up for those who need it, like myself.
Hopefully this will be a good method to set all of this up. I can’t wait to share it with our Tech guys.
Blessings to you.
Christy
Misty says
This may be the perfect answer for our small rural church! We have an ancient audio-technica speaker in the nursery that is on its last leg and we would like to add a live video streaming to the room. What type of camera would we need? No needing anything fancy and not worried about zooming in and out. Just a simple so so quality camera. Would a webcam work? Thanks for any help!
Blessings~Misty