What to show on the TV in your church lobby

For a church lobby, the useful digital signage is a short loop of announcements, one verse or welcome, and a QR code for giving or the newsletter, running on a TV that someone can update from a phone. OwnScreen can do that in a browser tab with no app and no player box, and a few other tools do more, at a price and with more setup. The list below is what a volunteer can actually keep running between Sundays.

Choose what belongs on a lobby screen

A lobby screen is read in passing, often by someone holding a coat and a child's hand. Four things earn a place:

• This week's announcements. Dates, times, rooms. Three or four lines, not a paragraph.
• A welcome for people who are new. One sentence and the name of the church if your sign is on a TV without a logo.
• A verse or a line for the season. Bible verse of the day shows a well-known verse and its reference, fullscreen, with no account.
• One QR code. The newsletter, the giving page or the event booking page. OwnScreen only displays the link you paste; your provider takes the payment or the signup.

Put the announcements on slides

Digital notice board turns one notice per line into its own slide, and the slides take turns on their own. Set the interval so the loop finishes in a couple of minutes, which is long enough for someone waiting in the lobby and short enough that nobody misses a slide twice.

Keep the text large. OwnScreen fits the message to the screen, and a long notice makes the rest of the sign smaller, which is the opposite of what a lobby needs.

Change it from the phone in the pew

Sign in, press Save and choose Go live. The saved sign gets its own link, and you open that link once on the lobby TV. From then on, a volunteer with a phone can replace the message without walking to the TV. A visible, connected live screen checks for changes every three seconds.

OwnScreen has no app to install and no video playback. A loop of sermon clips or a live stream belongs on a different setup; what works here is text, a verse, a QR code and a photograph you already host.

Plan around the service times

With Pro, a live screen can show different saved signs at set times. A Sunday morning screen could show the welcome from 08:00, the service times from 09:30 and a quiet "service in progress" notice until the end. Choose the time zone, and leave the TV on its live link.

Schedules need Pro: US$14.99 a month or US$149.90 a year for up to five live screens. Starter is US$4.99 a month or US$49.90 a year for one live screen, which suits a single lobby TV that someone edits by hand. A plan covers the account, not each screen, so a lobby and a hall screen are one Pro plan. Every plan starts with a 2-day free trial.

WelcomeSunday 10amAll welcome

Make a welcome sign free

Give the screen a quiet job

Mount the TV where people look while they wait, not where they queue for coffee. Turn the sound off: a lobby with music from one speaker and a video from another is worse than either alone. Check the screen from the door at the brightness of a Sunday morning, and if the glass reflects a window, move the TV rather than turning it up.

Agree who updates it. A lobby screen fails slowly, with last month's dates still up, and nobody notices until a visitor asks about an event that already happened. One named volunteer and one phone will keep it current.