Google Hangouts On Air allows you to have an online meeting on camera with up to ten people with all ten talking and contributing if necessary. It also allows you to stream this meeting live to Youtube.com where anyone can watch on their computer, mobile phone or tablet. After you are done, Google will send you an MP4 file for your very own. You can then add this to your archived video and/or chop it up and repurpose it. If you prefer, you can make it private so that no one else can hear or see the meeting except the participants.
With Google Hangouts on Air, there’s at least five great ways to use it for the Internet Church Campus:
- Stream your sermons or Bible studies live and record them on Youtube.com.
- Interactive Bible Study or Ministry meetings that can also be recorded for record keeping purposes.
- Interactive Counseling sessions.
- Special Events such as conference previews, webinars and online trainings (note: Google Hangouts on Air does not work with paid services so your use of this will be free to users and viewers for now).
- Podcasts done quickly and easily.
To setup a Google Hangout on Air for Ministry you just need to login to Google+ and click on the Hangouts option, invite the users you want to participate and launch the hangout. The only drawback is that each participant in the hangout needs to have a Google+ account.
For more information on this and other topics, get your copy of "The iChurch Method Volume 1: How to Advance Your Ministry Online." or The iChurch Method Volume 2: Changing the World When You Login or even sign up for the iChurch Method Online School.