One Sunday service can become about five pieces of content: the full live stream, a trimmed version of it, the sermon on its own, a playlist library if the sermons are a series, and a podcast made from the same audio. That is the argument in the video above. If your church is not live streaming yet, this is also the case for starting, because the service you are already producing every week is the lowest-hanging fruit in church media, and capturing it costs far less effort than letting it evaporate.
Why stream at all: the expectation is already there
Since COVID, people expect to be able to join the service when they cannot be in the room. They are sick, or home with a sick kid, or traveling. Dave gives his own example: on vacation in a remote place, he and his wife pull up their church’s service rather than driving 45 minutes into town. That expectation is simply the world churches live in now, and a church with no stream has no answer for it.
He is just as plain about the other side, and the episode deserves credit for saying it out loud. Dave does not believe the stream is a good way to do church every week, and he names the danger directly: “There’s a danger of any kind of broadcast related thing that tells people it’s okay not to come to church.” The stream serves the people who genuinely cannot make it that day. It is not a replacement for gathering, and churches that treat it as one are solving the wrong problem. Both things are true at once, and the episode holds them together.
Five pieces of content from one service
Step back from the philosophy for a moment and look at what your church already does every week. You stage a live event with a keynote speaker and a mini concert beforehand. That production already happens. Capturing it is the starting point, and once it is captured, the chain looks like this:
- The full service. The live stream itself is the first piece of content, there for the people who joined live and anyone who finds it later.
- A trimmed version. Cut the pre-show banter off the front and the closing off the back, so a clean version runs from welcome to goodbye. Dave describes doing exactly this to recordings of this very show.
- The sermon on its own. Pull the message out as a standalone video. It becomes an archive piece and a Bible study aid, something a small group can actually sit down with midweek.
- A series playlist. When the sermons are a series, group them. Five Sundays become a library people can work through start to finish, which is a different kind of useful than five scattered videos.
- A podcast. Strip the audio out and publish it as a podcast episode to Spotify, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music, and the rest. The teaching now reaches people in cars and on walks, places video never goes.
Five pieces of content from one service, and most of the work after the first one is trimming and uploading rather than producing anything new.
Work the whole produce section
Curtis explains it with his Kroger routine. When he grocery shops, he works the produce section completely while he is standing in it. The alternative is zig-zagging across the store, broccoli from produce, cheese from dairy, back across for asparagus, and then skipping the fruit entirely because it is all the way on the other side. Churches do the same thing with their services. They produce the whole event, capture part of its value, and leave the rest behind. In his words, “If we do it all in one place we capture it all then we have it to do whatever we want to with it.” The podcast might be your fruit. Go back for it while you are already standing there.
One honest note to close on: turning on a camera is the starting point, not the destination. The goal over time is a more polished, on-purpose production and a better experience for the viewer. But a church that captures its services and works the whole chain is already doing more for the people it serves than a church waiting until it can afford the finished version.
Frequently asked questions
Our church does not live stream yet. Why should we start?
Because your people already expect it, and because the service is already happening. The sick, the homebound, and the traveling in your congregation expect a way to join, and the event you would be capturing is one you already produce every single week.
Does live streaming just give people an excuse to skip church?
It can, and Dave says so in the episode. His answer is to aim the stream at its real purpose: serving people who genuinely cannot be there that day, while the church keeps teaching that gathering matters. The stream is a bridge for a hard week, not a substitute for belonging.
How much content can one Sunday service actually produce?
About five pieces, by the episode’s count: the full stream, a trimmed welcome-to-goodbye version, the sermon as a standalone video, a series playlist when the messages belong together, and a podcast episode from the same audio.
What should we do with a sermon series once the services are recorded?
Cut each sermon out on its own and group them into a playlist in order. You end up with a small library your people can work through, and that new families can use to catch up on where the church has been.
We are not set up for a polished production. Where do we begin?
Begin by capturing what you already do. Turn on a camera and record the event your church already produces, then work the repurposing chain. Polish comes with time and practice; the archive you start building this Sunday is worth having from day one.
The episode runs about seven minutes. The caveat and the content chain are both in it, in Dave and Curtis’s own words.