Every Sunday my Facebook Feed is filled with live streamed services from all over Louisiana and across the country. It is great to see so many churches using this platform to share the Gospel with their communities! And it is a great option for a lot of churches. Easy to use, great connection with people, and an affordable live stream option for churches. 

While nothing is changing with the Facebook Live part of Facebook, there are some changes coming regarding storage of those Facebook Live recordings that may impact your church. 

No need to panic though!

The New Policy:
Beginning on February 19th, any new live broadcast videos can be replayed, downloaded or shared from your Facebook Pages or profiles for 30 days, after which they will automatically be removed from Facebook. Previously these videos were stored indefinitely. 

You will have 90 days to download your existing video content before it is removed. Facebook will notify accounts via email and the app when this starts. 

Your Next Steps:
If your church has sermons and services from the past stored on Facebook, start downloading those as soon as possible. Facebook has provided a great walkthrough of how to download multiple videos here. 

It would be a great idea for your church to create a YouTube account, so that those services can continue being available. 
Creating a YouTube Account.

Another long term storage option for churches would be a Vimeo account. They have a free and several pain options, based on how much storage you’d need. 
Creating a Vimeo account. 

While this can be frustrating, I think it’s understandable. With so many accounts using Facebook Live and storing videos on this platform, it would be impossible for Facebook to continue that indefinitely. Facebook continues to be a great way to share the Gospel with your community. Hopefully this will help set your church up to continue in the future.