Collide Magazine

Church In Your Pocket

Ryan Barnhart - Originally posted Monday, December 7, 2009 -

Jason Lombard owns an iPhone. He regularly attends church, but because he is a fireman and occasionally works weekends he cannot always attend church by gathering with others in a building. As a result, Lombard often worships any way his schedule allows. When Northland, A Church Distributed (www.northlandchurch.net) launched their first live, public iPhone-friendly service in July, Lombard immediately began viewing the weekly message on his iPhone when he could not attend church.

“I have to work a lot of Sundays so I find myself relying on the site as much, if not more, than going to a physical church.” Lombard said. “I find a quiet area and watch, knowing that if I get [called to a fire] I can just pop the iPhone back into my pocket and resume when I get back.”

Inception
With a congregation of 12,000 people across four locations in Central Florida and a successful online campus, Northland is continually searching for innovative ways to reach those within the body, as well as the lost. The iPhone is just another tool in their arsenal.

“It is our belief that church—the practice of following Jesus in your faith community—should be an everywhere, everyday experience,” Northland’s Director of Digital Innovation Nathan Clark said. “We want to leverage technology to allow people to worship God together, wherever they are.” Before this summer, Northland was already live streaming its services but the iPhone stream was another step forward. “By putting the stream on the phone, without even needing a computer, anyone can fire up a video stream of the service and gather with others to worship,” Clark added.

A Common Reason
Although some pastors and church attendees oppose the idea of bringing church to the people, churches with an iPhone-friendly service such as Northland share a common vision: reaching more people with the message of Christ. An average of 4,500 people in 140 countries attend LifeChurch.tv’s Church Online experiences, but as of July worshippers may also view experiences on their iPhone.

“As people become increasingly connected through their mobile devices, we want to meet them where they are, both spiritually and physically,” says Bobby Gruenewald, Pastor and Innovation Leader for LifeChurch.tv.

Flamingo Road Church (www.flamingroadchurch.com) in Cooper City, Florida, also began live streaming video to iPhones in July. With 9,000 attendees spread out over five campuses and even more involved with the Internet Campus, Flamingo Road Church hopes to make life simpler for church attendees and seekers.

“There are so many reasons why a person may not be able to attend services physically … like distance, illness, phobia, or being burned by past church experiences, and we wanted to stream the Flamingo Road Church service to give people in any of those categories a chance to connect with God in a way that best helped them get closer to Christ,” says, Brian Vasil, Internet Campus Pastor at Flamingo Road. The church desires to bring believers and seekers closer to Christ any way they can. “Our lead Pastor, Troy Gramling, is a firm believer in shortening the steps for people to begin a relationship with Jesus,” Vasil added. “We believe that live streaming allows us to do that.”

Mars Hill Church (www.marshillchurch.org) in Seattle, Washington, and Newsong Church (www.newsong.net) in Irvine, California, do not offer live streaming through the iPhone as of yet, but Mars Hill does offer their vast media library through the iPhone app while Newsong offers the current week’s service and archived services. “It’s a tool that’s effective for ministering to not only those on our campuses but those in our global audience as well,” says Nick Bogardus, PR/Media Relations Director of Mars Hill Church. Tony Kim, the Executive Pastor at Newsong, concurs. “God can use any platform to connect; we just have to remove the obstacles and get out of the way!” Kim says.

How to Begin
Setting up the live streaming video through an iPhone was a fairly simple and inexpensive three-step process for Northland. It took just five days to be fully tested and functional, and it cost just $50 on top of their preexisting technology.

First, the Northland team tweaked their Flash Media Encoder setting to create a video stream optimized for the iPhone and purchased an audio plug-in to optimize the sound. Next, Wowza Media Server 2 (www.wowzamedia.com) was set up on an Amazon Web Services cloud server (aws.amazon.com). Lastly, they connected the video stream from the Amazon server to Northland’s iPhone-friendly mobile site. (A more detailed version of the three-step process is available online on Northland’s media and technology blog.)

The Bad with the Good
Of course there are those who suggest that advancements in technology can lead to laziness on the part of a church attendee, and Rob Vander Ark, an Internet-based business owner, expressed a concern over a lack of community for those solely using iPhones as a means of “attending” church. “It’s great if people actually listen and learn as long as this doesn’t replace them attending church in their own community,” Vander Ark said. “But if I was forced to work on Sunday and my wife and kids went to church, at least I would hear the same message and we could discuss it.”

But the complaints heard by those taking advantage of live video streaming are few and far between according to the churches that have instituted the feature. Besides the occasional glitches that come with technology such as software crashes or slow download speeds, the churches have only received positive feedback.

“We have heard from individuals who have connected their iPhone to the audio system in their car so they could listen to an experience while driving,” Gruenewald said. “Others have connected it to their TV so they can enjoy it with others and some have even caught a Church Online experience at the grocery store.”

The Flamingo Road staff has heard similar stories. “The iPhone stream has been received extremely well,” Vasil said. “People have told us that one of the first things they do when they are ‘showing off’ their iPhone to their friends is to tap the bookmarked Flamingo Road Church streaming site and talk about going to church and experiencing God on their phone.”

Fad or Outreach?
Is live streaming to iPhones just a cool feature or is it another way to further the kingdom of Christ? Northland, Flamingo Road, and LifeChurch.tv believe the latter.

“We may never know this side of Heaven all of those that are impacted by worshiping through their iPhone, but we aren’t going to sit around letting good technology stagnate without trying to leverage it for God.” Vasil said.

Jason Lombard agrees. Lombard has been able to build and renew his faith through Northland. “[Live streaming] allows me to worship in my comfort zone when, in any other situation, I might say ‘Church is too stuffy for me’ and not go,” Lombard said. “It has absolutely helped my spirituality.”

Lombard’s “church” may fit into his pocket when he is finished viewing, but his relationship with Christ has grown much deeper as a result of him staying connected with the church and hearing the weekly message when he cannot attend church in a physical building. To him and Northland, there’s no question the iPhone is an important tool in furthering the kingdom.

Ryan Barnhart is a freelance writer who lives in Denton, Texas. He can be reached at rybarns [at] yahoo.com.