Live streaming: Everyone’s doing it, including churches worldwide. But just because they’re doing it, doesn’t mean they’re doing it the best – or easiest – way.

Broadcasting your church services and events on TV with a live stream sounds great yet daunting. Don’t worry though, because it’s not as complicated or tech-involved as you think!

If you only have some minutes, read our 5-minute church streaming crash course article here.

Read on to learn how to get started streaming (publicly or for members only) your church’s live and past events directly to the TV screens of your community – without writing a single line of code.

P.S. If you want to check out Tappla and see what it’s about as you read through this post, you can sign up for our free trial to create your own Church TV app.

What are the benefits of live streaming your church’s services on TV?

Having a custom platform for access to your worship services and events benefits your church by helping build awareness, loyalty, and growth. The easier you make it for current and prospective members of your congregation to see what you have to offer, the better off they (and the church) will be. Keep the following in mind as you consider a Church TV app:

• Some members of your church may be on vacation, living abroad, or nursing an illness or injury that prevents them from attending services. If these same people can easily watch sermons from their own TV or television device, they’ll feel more included, cared for, and in the know. 
• With your own platform, you can provide your community with easy access to past events, retreats, conferences, and services. The opportunity to watch content on-demand like this will increase awareness and the involvement of your community.

A live streaming best practice, with zero effort

Imagine your community watching a sermon on your Church TV app and having their experience interrupted by inappropriate ads and weird recommendations of other videos to watch. Imagine them being sidetracked by email or other applications on their computer or phone.

You don’t want this to happen, right?

Of course not. To avoid interruption and distraction, it’s important that you stream your church’s services and events with an ad-free, white-label solution where you can control 100% of what your audience will and will not see. It helps to keep your viewers engaged and build the brand of your church.

And if the thought of “church as a brand” feels a little off-putting to you, think of it this way: If what you really want to do is help as many people as possible through your church, that means you’ll need to reach as many people as possible. To grow your community, you must establish and grow your brand. Having a custom live streaming TV app that promotes the look and feel of your church is an excellent, easy way to do just that. 

How to get your own ad-free, custom Church TV app

The easiest way to build a live streaming app for your church? Don’t build it. Tappla allows you to easily broadcast your church services and events directly to TV screens. 

With no technical skills and in less than 10 minutes, you can create your own branded Church TV app for Apple TV®. Inside your custom Church TV app, your audience can watch your live streams and browse through your past services, sermons, and special events, directly on their televisions at home.

All you have to do is record your church services and upload them to a hosting provider. This can be Youtube, Vimeo, Amazon S3, or any other live stream hosting service.

You can then easily add your live streams from any of these providers to your church’s own Apple TV app with just a click of a button!

No ads will be displayed and you can control 100% of what will be shown inside your app, including videos, logos, colors, and images. 

Why we recommend Apple TV for your church’s app

It’s likely we can all agree that Apple TV is associated with high quality. Shouldn’t your high-quality church services be viewed in a high-quality environment? Showing your videos on Apple TV gives your church a premium look and feel.

Besides, it’s estimated that there are 53 million units of the Apple TV digital media extender device in use worldwide, and that number is primed to grow with the launch of Apple TV+. 

Alternatives to Tappla’s Church TV App Creator

If you don’t want to use Tappla to create your own church app for Apple TV, you can look for someone to code up an app for you. Just be aware that Apple TV has its own version of iOS, which is called tvOS™.

What you might want to do is look into whether it’s more affordable to code your own Church TV app or to pay the low monthly fee for an app builder service like Tappla. You can check this Build vs Buy Calculator from Baremetrics to figure out your best course of action.

All that being said, if you have good programming skills and enjoy writing code, you can try to teach yourself to develop your own Church TV app for Apple TV with the help of this tutorial:

[Apple TV is a registered trademark of Apple, Inc.]

[tvOS is a trademark of Apple, Inc.]