If you’re a pastor or church leader, you know how important it is to have meetings. But when you’re faced with a multi-site ministry, outsourced resources, or issues that occur outside of work hours, it can be difficult to get together instantly.
As a result, many churches have turned to services like Zoom to keep their congregations connected and engaged during lockdown periods. Learn how to use this robust platform for your church meetings in this article.
| Have you tried Meetn, the new online meeting platform? It’s turning out to become a decent alternative to Zoom and to the other major platforms. |
How to Set Up a Meeting
Zoom is an online video conferencing platform that you can use to connect with your church team or others around the world. You can use Zoom on your laptop or desktop, mobile phone, or even a landline.
The first step is to set up a meeting. In the Zoom app, click the orange New Meeting button to create a new meeting.
Select a date and time, and add participants to the call. You can also choose to invite people via text, email or instant messaging.
If you want to minimize background noise during the meeting, enable “Mute participants upon entry.” This mutes everyone on the call when they join the call. Hosts can mute or unmute everyone on the call themselves.
Pre-Meeting Chatter
Often, the best way to engage remote participants is with pre-meeting chatter. Researchers have found that teams that participate in these chats tend to be more productive and feel they are achieving more.
While we can’t say that this is true for every meeting, it can make a big difference in how the meeting is run and how effective the outcome will be. We can’t recommend enough that leaders take advantage of this opportunity to get their team talking!
One of Zoom’s popular features is its breakout rooms, which are a great way to facilitate small group discussions. They also allow participants to share screen sharing and video media with each other. You can also use their chat feature for participant questions and discussion.
During the Meeting
Zoom is a cloud-based video-conferencing software program that allows participants to join from anywhere in the world. It also includes a built-in chat function that can be used to communicate with others during the meeting.
Many churches use this technology to stream church services or other events. Whether they are live or pre-recorded, the video can be shared on YouTube or Facebook to reach a wider audience.
However, this means that meetings may not be as interactive as a typical small group or Sunday school class. In addition, it may be difficult for non-technical people to participate in a Zoom meeting.
If you’re using Zoom to host your meetings, make sure to set it up so that only participants who have the meeting link and password can join. This will help keep your meetings secure and reduce the risk of people sharing inappropriate information during the meeting, known as “zoom bombing.”
Post-Meeting Chatter
If you’re using Zoom for your church meeting, it’s important to keep in mind that a good virtual meeting is not just a one-way communication. Post-meeting chatter can help to ensure everyone has an opportunity to participate in the conversation.
If the meeting is going well, consider inviting participants to share their thoughts in a chat during or after the meeting. This will encourage participation and make people feel more involved in the group discussion.
Another advantage of Zoom is that you can create a link that will allow any person to join the meeting. This is especially useful for small groups or Bible studies.
It can be a challenge to integrate video streaming into a church service. It needs to be easy for the operator in church and also for the congregation at home.