Streaming

Putting Bible verses on your church live stream

By Mambo Mutinda · Founder & CEO, TajiCast

14 August 2026 · Updated 8 September 2026

Your projector serves the people in the building. Everyone watching at home sees a camera pointed at a preacher, with no idea which passage is being read. If half your congregation is online — and for many churches it is — then scripture that only reaches the room reaches half the people who need it.

The three ways to do it, worst to best

1. Screen capture (avoid)

Capture the projector output as a source in OBS and put it in the scene.

It works, and it is a poor answer. Screen capture has no transparency, so instead of a bar over the preacher you get the whole verse screen covering the camera. Cutting between them means the online viewer sees either a face or a verse, never both.

It is also fragile: the operator's cursor, a notification, or a window opened by mistake all land on the stream.

2. A separate graphics application

Build lower thirds in a dedicated graphics tool and trigger them by hand.

Better output, considerably more work: someone has to type or select each verse during the service, which is the manual-search problem all over again, now with a second operator or a second job for the one you have.

3. NDI (what to use)

Your scripture software sends a lower-third with a transparent background over the network. OBS or vMix receives it as a named source and keys it over the camera automatically.

• No capture card.
• Works whether the software is on the same computer or a different one.
• The graphic appears and disappears on its own as verses come and go.
• The room and the stream show the same verse at the same moment.

Setup for both switchers is in NDI for churches.

Getting it into your switcher

1. Turn on NDI outputIn your scripture software, enable NDI for the output you want on the stream — usually a lower-third layout rather than the full-screen one going to the projector.
2. Add the sourceIn OBS add an NDI Source; in vMix use Add Input → NDI. Pick the sender by name.
3. Put it on topDrag it above the camera in the source list so it keys over the shot rather than behind it.
4. Add it to every sceneAny scene where scripture might appear needs the source. A verse that only shows on one camera angle is worse than none.

Designing the bar for a phone

Most of your stream is watched on a phone, held at arm's length, often without sound in the first few seconds. That should decide the design.

• Bigger than you think. Text sized for a laptop preview is small on a phone. Check it on one before Sunday.
• Inside title-safe margins. Keep the bar clear of the very bottom and the sides — devices crop differently and text against an edge gets cut.
• The bottom third, not half. It is sharing the frame with a person.
• High contrast, solid enough to read over whatever the camera is showing. A translucent bar over a bright window is unreadable.
• Keep the reference on it. Someone arriving mid-stream needs to know what is being read.
• Shorter than the projector version. For a long passage, the reference plus a phrase often reads better online than the full text.

Timing, and who drives it

The verse should reach the stream at the same moment it reaches the room. If your scripture software drives both outputs, that happens automatically — one decision, two destinations.

If two different people are running the projector and the stream graphics, they will drift apart, and the online congregation gets a worse service than the room. That is an argument for a single source of truth rather than for more volunteers.

Where detection is automatic, the same logic applies to unplanned passages: the stream gets the off-script verse as readily as the projector does, without anyone typing it twice.

A checklist before Sunday

• NDI source visible in the switcher and named clearly.
• Graphic above the camera in every scene that needs it.
• Transparency keying properly — no black rectangle.
• Bar inside title-safe margins, checked on a phone.
• A real verse pushed while watching the stream on a phone off the church wifi.

The takeaway

• Online viewers cannot see your projector; scripture has to reach them separately.
• NDI is the right mechanism because it carries transparency and keys over the camera.
• Design the stream bar for a phone, not for the wall, and never send one layout to both.

Related: NDI for churches · How to live stream a church service · Scripture design