One of the main goals for any church is to be able to spread the word of its religion to those around it. Moorestown’s Our Lady of Good Counsel parish is now able to share its message outside of the church as well.
In the past few weeks, OLGC has completed its conversion to new streaming software and is now able to live stream its liturgies. The streaming allows residents with poor health, physical limitations or those who can’t make it to church to still participate in events by watching at home.
“The Internet is our new world, and we need to spread our message in that new world,” Father Damian McElroy said.
“We have to keep up with technology and use it efficiently to spread the word of God,” Marketing Director Michelle Molz said.
OLGC started streaming services in 2013, but in August that year, the church was hit by lightning during a huge storm and the equipment was damaged. Piece by piece, the church was able to get its equipment running, but wanted to find a new streaming service, as the service through the old provider would often crash.
Last December, Molz attended the Digital Church Conference on “New Media, New Evangelization” and, from a recommendation, found a new provider called Streamspot. Not only could the church broadcast live masses and events with this new service, but can archive and share videos as teaching tools in the OLGC School. OLGC is one of the only Catholic churches in the area live streaming at this time, according to Molz. She feels it will pay off in the long run with the number of things the church can do and provide for people through streaming.
Having video services allows anyone to watch a church event. This includes those nearby with limitations on getting to church, and those far away who can’t make it to the event. The streaming service came in handy during the Jan. 24 blizzard, when people couldn’t go to church, and 450 people were able to watch from their homes.
“The capability could be used by those confined to their care facilities, to remote family and friends during weddings and funerals, and now, without any additional effort, by hundreds of snow-bound parishioners,” Father Jim Grogan said.
Another benefit of the streaming service is for evangelization. People who are interested in finding a place to practice their faith can watch, listen and see if they would feel comfortable at OLGC.
“If it helps bring people to us, it makes a lot of sense to broadcast His message to as many people as we can,” Molz said.
Molz said teachers have already started to use past broadcasts as tools during classes at OLGC School.
However, McElroy doesn’t want the streaming to replace people being present at the church and its services, but to help in situations where people cannot attend.
“In our heart of hearts, our first choice is for people to be present, gathered together. Streaming is not a replacement for the physical presence in church; we want people to form connections, relationships and a community,” McElroy said.
OLGC would like to be able to live stream other events such as bus trips or things outside of the church using other devices but would need a volunteer to help it do so.
The live streams can be found at the OLGC website, www.olgcnj.org. The streams and past broadcasts can be found on the left, under the main photo on the website. Streams and videos can be watched on a computer as well as other mobile devices.
