communicationsmultisitepodcast

Under the Hood of the Technology Driving So Many Multisite Churches with Paul Martel

Thanks for joining this week’s unSeminary podcast. This is multisite month and I’m excited to have Paul Martel with us today. He is the CEO and cofounder of Resi, formally known as Living As One.

Paul began his work doing broadcasts at Hewlett-Packard and managing their transmissions. In the meantime, he was also helping his church with A/V needs. When his church wanted to do video streaming at their campuses, Paul brought in the same technology from HP to make it happen. Whereas HP was using a private internet connection for their transmissions, however, the church had to use public internet connections. As a result, data transfer for the church was incredibly slow and the campus viewing experience was poor because video would cut out. Paul started Resi in response to this problem churches have with streaming content to their locations.

Paul is with us today to talk about the technology that Resi has created and how it can help with streaming video to church campuses.

  • The challenges of video delivery. // If you’re a church doing video teaching at your campuses, chances are you’re handling the transmission of that video in one of two ways. One method is to record your content to solid state hard drives and physically drive them to other campuses. However, this method can create a delay if the delivery isn’t on time, a file can get corrupted, or there can be on-the-spot errors that are difficult to solve in the moment. Another method churches use is to create a satellite connection in order to stream their content to campuses. But satellite is expensive at a $300,000 initial investment, plus additional costs for the satellite time as it’s used. Satellite also doesn’t work well for portable campuses because you have to set up a satellite receiver, and this can be tough for volunteers that don’t have the technical expertise.
  • Another solution. // Paul and his team knew that they couldn’t fix the slow transfer rates of public internet connections and it would cost churches thousands and thousands of dollars for a private connection. So Resi engineered another option for churches. They built their own hardware and software to capture the video and store everything at every step in the transmission process. This method put all of that data on local hard drives to make sure the broadcast was transmitted appropriately. Even if the internet at one location went out, everything was still stored and started back up where it left off when the connection returned.
  • Simple and scaleable. // Because the system that Resi developed is built through a cloud network, it’s incredibly scaleable. Plus it’s simple to use on both the broadcast sending and receiving end. The simplicity of the design eliminates the need for volunteers to have special expertise when it comes to using this system. The methods that Resi uses make it easy to keep these broadcasts streaming on both ends and they teach users how to solve issues that may come up. Additionally, the system is set up to broadcast automatically during scheduled service times. If there are any problems, the system will send alerts directly to you.
  • Easy setup for portable and small campuses. // Portable campuses are using this plan of streaming too since their internet is not always reliable. They can simply roll in their equipment on its rack during set-up and use wireless hot spots to broadcast the service. These systems have even been used in house churches where a group can gather to watch a message from another church. Some house churches in Australia that used this method grew so large that they became church campuses.

You can find out more about Resi and how they can help your church at resi.io.

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Thank You to This Episode’s Sponsor: Red Letter Challenge

Red Letter Challenge is not only a plug-and-play campaign to help your church gain a better insight into the teaching of Jesus, but it will also help your church grow because of deeper engagement!

Visit redletterchallenge.com/unseminary to explore turnkey packages and see what this resource can do for your church.

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Rich Birch
Rich Birch is one of the early multi-site church pioneers in North America. He led the charge in helping The Meeting House in Toronto to become the leading multi-site church in Canada with over 5,000+ people in 18 locations. In addition, he served on the leadership team of Connexus Church in Ontario, a North Point Community Church Strategic Partner. He has also been a part of the lead team at Liquid Church - a 5 location multisite church serving the Manhattan facing suburbs of New Jersey. Liquid is known for it’s innovative approach to outreach and community impact. Rich is passionate about helping churches reach more people, more quickly through excellent execution.His latest book Church Growth Flywheel: 5 Practical Systems to Drive Growth at Your Church is an Amazon bestseller and is design to help your church reach more people in your community.