Scarisbrick Baptist Church, Southport

Starting with a single camera during the pandemic – Scarisbrick has evolved their use of technology and now offers itself as a filming venue.

Scarisbrick New Road Baptist Church used technology to broadcast during the pandemic – and now offers itself as a filming venue for the local school and other community organisations.
 
The leadership and congregation at the Southport-based church started off with just a single camera and a laptop, but have gradually evolved into a multi-camera operation with mixing desk.
 
They used refurbished equipment, as well as free software, enabling them to keep costs down. A single computer handles all of their multimedia, including graphics, lyric overlays, PowerPoints and videos, while their main extravagance has been a video switcher, which handles the incoming video inputs and pushes the broadcast out to the Internet.  
 
Thier primary broadcast output is to their church YouTube channel, chosen because it is free, searchable and does not require users to log-in. Along with pre-recorded videos of songs and reflections, their livestreams are available for anyone to watch, expanding their mission and ministry beyond Southport, even as far as Spain and Canada. 
 
And they haven’t stopped there. They now have the capability to operate outside broadcasts.
A major turning point was in the first lockdown, when we held a carol celebration in the carpark. I gave a very short message, we laid on hot chocolate, and broadcast the whole thing live.
‘It was all a bit Heath Robinson at first,’ said Rev Dan Parkes, who said he was ‘delighted’ Scarisbrick was among the winners. ‘But we developed as we went along. A major turning point was in the first lockdown, when we held a carol celebration in the carpark. I gave a very short message, we laid on hot chocolate, and broadcast the whole thing live, with the cameras operated from a control room in my office. People watched from all over the country, and the whole thing proved to us what we were capable of.
 
North West regional winner [image]‘We livestreamed the Nativity put on by the local school, Linaker Primary, with the children performing on three separate days in the church, in front of a handful of family and literally hundreds more people watching online.
 
‘When it came to their recent end-of-year production they were let down by their venue of choice, so we offered them the church and, again, we broadcast it – close to 200 people tuned in. It’s fantastic to support the school, with the help of Southport and Area Schools Workers Trust – being a good witness is who we are, and it has helped to build that sense of community as well as introducing children to the church.
 
‘It’s also obviously been really helpful for all the members of our own congregation as well as friends from overseas who can’t physically be with us for services.’