Why Every Online Church Needs a Host Team (And How to Build One)

If you’re like most churches with online services, you want to engage your online attenders fully with your church. 

Here at Life.Church, we’ve found that connections are quicker and richer with an online host team. 

Your host team is like your welcome, next steps, and prayer teams—all in one. They greet attenders in the chat, answer questions, share helpful links and resources, and pray for people through one-on-one prayer.

With an online host team, you can give guests a place to belong and be loved, not just attend. 

You turn viewers into a church community where people are prayed for, get to know each other, and have a place to serve others. 

At Life.Church Online, we’ve found that some of the most powerful pastoral moments happen in prayer sessions during our services. 

Attenders feel safe to express their deepest pains, regrets, and sins through online prayer. So, we have trained hosts ready to pastor people through those hard seasons when they reach out online.

Who Should You Invite to Join Your Online Host Team?

Hosts can be staff or volunteers from your church, and the number you need for each service depends on if you use features like Chat, Moments, and Live Prayer and how many attenders are in your service. 

As a general guide, we try to have at least three to five hosts for each Life.Church Online service. 

We chatted with Christina on the Life.Church Online team to learn exactly how she builds new volunteers into strong, pastoral host team leaders. Here’s the four-step process she uses: 

Step #1: Send Potential Volunteers an Application

When someone applies to join the team, we ask them about their faith, beliefs, and availability.

If their responses are questionable, we’ll schedule an interview to talk through them.

If there aren’t any red flags, they’ll move to the next phase: the background check.

Step #2: Schedule the First Meeting

After the application and background check, we will schedule a call with them to ask deeper questions about their faith journey and technical experience and walk them through what to expect. 

The questions we ask are designed to show the applicant’s technical ability, interpersonal skills, and pastoral instinct. 

Bonus Tip: If multiple people sign up to volunteer around the same time, we’ll do this call as a group.

If someone isn’t a fit at this stage, we’ll encourage them to continue attending Life.Church Online. If they are a fit, they move to step three. 

Step #3: Practice Leading Attenders Through Prayer

In step three, we send the applicant a few mock prayer requests and ask them to answer them as best as they can. 

This test is critical in making sure the potential host team volunteer can respond pastorally, confidently, and with compassion.

The Life.Church Online team has created a set of training resources for teaching someone how to pray virtually and in writing. Access those training resources to use at your church. 

Get the free training resources. 

Step #4: Welcome the New Host and Onboard Them

If they respond well in the prayer response practice, we welcome the new volunteer to the team!

Once they’re on the team, we assign them to a designated service and offer deeper training.

See the exact training process we walk new Life.Church Online hosts through in the Church Online Hosts: Complete Guide. 

This guide will help you and your new hosts understand the crucial role they play. Inside, you’ll find a collection of training resources, recommended responses, communication tips, and so much more. As always, it’s free on Life.Church Open Network.