Hybrid church: Zoom prayer meetings, remote speakers and your livestream together

Church life now happens in two places: in the building and online. The prayer meeting is on Zoom, a missionary wants to greet the church from abroad, and members who can’t travel watch on YouTube. Instead of running these separately, you can connect them.

Send your service into Zoom

With the StreamPort Virtual Camera and Virtual Mic, your finished service, with scenes, graphics and the sound desk mix, becomes a camera and microphone in Zoom, Teams or Google Meet. In the meeting app, choose StreamPort Virtual Camera and StreamPort Virtual Mic.

This works well for:

• Small groups that watch the service together and discuss afterwards.
• Members in care homes or hospital, where a family member joins a Zoom call on a tablet.
• Prayer meetings that open with a short teaching from the pastor, with slides and scripture on screen.

You can stream to YouTube and Facebook at the same time, so the public sees the livestream while the small group talks back in Zoom. See using your show as a camera in Zoom for setup.

Bring a remote speaker on air

A missionary update, a guest preacher who can’t travel, a testimony from a member abroad: send them a guest link. They join from a browser on their laptop or phone, with no app or account. You admit them, and they appear in your service as their own camera with their own mixer channel. They hear the service without an echo of themselves.

Bring Zoom participants into the livestream

If the people you want on air are already in a Zoom meeting, for example a panel of elders or a prayer chain, StreamPort can join the meeting and bring each Zoom participant in as their own source. Put three of them side by side in a grid scene and stream it to YouTube. The Zoom host needs to allow livestreaming when Zoom asks.

A hybrid prayer night, start to finish

1. The pastor opens in the building, streamed to YouTube and sent into the Zoom prayer meeting.
2. A missionary joins through a guest link with a 5-minute update and prayer request.
3. The Zoom group breaks into prayer rooms while the livestream shows a worship scene.
4. Everyone comes back together for the closing prayer, with the giving banner on screen.

What you need

One Mac with StreamPort. Browser guests are on the Solo and Studio plans (2 and 4 guests). The virtual camera and mic and bringing Zoom participants on air are part of the Studio plan. Every new install includes a 14-day free trial of everything, so you can test a hybrid service before you decide.