Finding Long-Term Streaming, OTT, and Multi-Site Technologies for Growing Ministry Needs + Opportunities
Sandals Church has long been ahead of the curve when it comes to live streaming and digital media. They began broadcasting live video in 2015, starting with Lightcast — but the experience was inconsistent, working only about 70% of the time. They eventually moved to Wowza, but rising costs became unsustainable.
In the meantime, they had also built their own custom Roku OTT app. While it served them well for a time, maintaining it became increasingly difficult. It required a specialized programming language and constant technical upkeep, something their team no longer had the bandwidth for.
All of this was happening as the church itself was rapidly growing. With multiple new campuses being added over the years, they needed a reliable, flexible, and affordable technology platform to support their expanding ministry footprint, one that could power not just streaming, but also multi-site delivery and OTT experiences.
A final requirement was finding a solution that didn’t require constant hands-on support or additional staff or volunteer effort. “We were still having people come in to this site to run services and streams, and so we were looking for just greater degrees of flexibility,” Zachary explained.
One Platform for Every Need
Automated streaming hardware was a top priority for Zachary and his team, and now every Sandals location is equipped with a BoxCaster encoder. “This was a big selling point for us — the automation — where you can turn on a broadcast without having to go through multiple manual steps. Our first priority was moving to hardware encoders to add a certain level of stability to streaming.”
When BoxCast launched OTT apps, Sandals quickly rolled them out with support from the BoxCast team, now offering content on both Roku and Apple TV. Each multi-site location also uses BoxCast to stream the message each weekend.
Overall, Zachary shared, “It became clear to me that there was a tremendous opportunity, and over time I made a pitch that if we invested more resources in our technology, we could see a lot of growth.”
Sandals Church is a multi-site church based in Southern California with over a dozen campuses across the region, including locations in Riverside, Redlands, and beyond. Their mission is to reach people with the gospel and help them grow in an authentic relationship with Jesus through innovative use of digital media, live streaming, and in-person ministry.
Riverside, CA
10,000 Weekly Attendance
1997
More Than Streaming: Using Media in Innovative Ways to Help People Grow Daily
Sandals Church emphasizes two priorities in their digital media ministry: (1) using their platform as a modern missions movement to reach people around the world, and (2) helping people grow into deeper levels of discipleship through daily engagement.
While maintaining strong in-person attendance of 10,000 each weekend, they average 16,000 online viewers for their services and reach over 200,000 views each week through sermon clips, highlights, and other media their team creates.
With BoxCast’s affordable and intuitive platform, they’ve been able to efficiently manage live streaming, multi-site distribution, and OTT apps, freeing up time and energy to invest in their next frontier: a mobile app focused on daily discipleship through short videos, Scripture reading, and guided prayer.
“Right now, my whole team is focused on how we can help infuse daily discipleship in our lives through technology.”
"We took it from a couple hundred people watching online to a couple thousand, and now tens of thousands of people are watching or seeing our service online each week."
Zachary Applegate
Senior Technology + Digital Media Network Director
Sandals Church
A Broad Streaming Platform With Many Applications
With over a dozen campuses and tens of thousands of weekly viewers, Sandals Church needed more than just a streaming solution — they needed a platform. BoxCast helped unify their live streaming, OTT apps, and multi-site distribution with tools that are easy to manage, automate, and scale.
Technology Designed to Free Up Time for Other Things
By moving to a more stable and automated system, Sandals Church no longer has to rely on specialized tech staff to keep things running. With reliable encoders, OTT rollout support, and multi-site delivery all in one place, their team has been able to reinvest energy into new tools for daily discipleship — furthering their mission beyond Sunday services.
