The Lovers Lane United Methodist Church (LLUMC) is a contemporary, well-traveled congregation in Dallas that offers relaxed services and is willing to use the latest technology to reach out to current and potential members.

Founded in 1944 by Bishop Tom Ship and part of the North Texas Conference of United Methodist Churches, the LLUMC holds a progressive outlook – it was the first Methodist church in the area to hold single adult services in the 1970s and is among the few churches to offer an online credit card donation option.

The Problem
As its congregation has become more scattered over the years, the LLUMC turned to technology to help them reach out.

"Because of our congregation's well-traveled profile, much of it is spread out. Many of their children live around the world," said Christy Thomas, associate pastor. "A large number of our members also have military family members and friends in Iraq. We needed a way to reach out to these parishioners and bring them a little closer to home, especially during the holidays."

Another challenge was reaching prospective members. In 2005, the church stopped broadcasting its advertisements on local television channels due to the high cost and minimal response rate. However, this also led to a loss of visibility. The church needed a low-cost, high-impact way to access the public. 

"The unknown can be quite intimidating to people, especially with regard to a church," said Thomas. "We needed a way to reflect the empathizing atmosphere and ambiance of the United Methodist Church to future parishioners."

The Solution
Keeping its congregation's profile in mind, and their openness to new media, the church authorities decided that the Internet seemed like a natural next step.

"Almost all the people who consider joining a church first look up the church's Web site to make sure that they would feel comfortable with the church and its atmosphere," said Thomas. "They want to know the people and the services behind the institution. Video broadcasts, we felt, could be much more effective in this than words. We are always on the alert for new technology and the idea of Web-casting appealed to us."

Streaming their services live over the Internet could address both of the church's problems. It was cost-effective and could reach out to both scattered congregation members and into homes they lost when they ceased television video broadcasts. It would also allow members unable to attend due to distance or disability to have remote access to any service from home.

They were helped by Dallas-based ViewCast Corp., www.viewcast.com, which develops video and audio communications products for delivering content via the Web. The church decided to use ViewCast's Niagara PowerStream Pro streaming video encoders and Osprey streaming video cards, which capture video content, encode it and deliver it live across the Internet. The PowerStream Pro also archives the service for future "on-demand" broadcasts to members who can't view the live event.

ViewCast Corp. executives worked with the church to conduct a trial run with the PowerStream Pro in mid-December 2005. One week later, LLUMC was ready to install the encoder, just in time to stream its "Silent Night" contemporary service live over the holidays. The installation took less than an hour from start to finish.

 "What appealed to us was the ease of getting this whole process up and running," said Thomas.

The ViewCast Niagara family of streaming video encoders and servers are designed to provide pre-configured, plug-and-play solutions, enabling quick implementation of broadcasting premium quality audio and video over the Internet.

"The response has been tremendous and uniformly positive," said Thomas. "So many parishioners have commented that viewing the Web-cast service was even better than attending it in person, since they were able to view everything up close and clearly. The TV crew did a wonderful job, and the quality of the broadcast was excellent. We now plan to air services live regularly."

The Future
Maintaining its cutting-edge approach, the LLUMC continues to look forward to exciting new applications in video communications for their church. Thomas plans to meet with a TV crew soon to start filming and archiving services that would then be available through the Web site.

Because of the time difference involved, it is not always possible for the church's overseas audience to access the service live. But with the archived resources, they would be able to see the service whenever they want. With ViewCast's help, it would be just a click away.