Image: Szabo Victor | Unsplash

We’re all doing church online now.

If your church is new to this, and you’re putting your church on YouTube, your YouTube URL looks something like this:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3iMLx7Dyfi3T097D7VEnA

What you want is something like this:

https://www.youtube.com/GodsGraceChurch

It makes the church URL easier to remember and find, helping us reach more people

So how does a church get there?

How To Qualify For A Custom YouTube URL

According to YouTube, there are four steps to qualify:

• Be at least 30 days old
• Have an uploaded photo as a channel icon
• Have uploaded channel art
• Have 100 or more subscribers

The first three you can do on your own. The fourth one you need help with. And that’s why I subscribed to over 100 Church YouTube channels in the last few days.

Over the weekend, I asked our church members to subscribe. Then, on several social media sites, pastors did a URL exchange. I subscribe to yours, you subscribe to mine.

In less than 24 hours, our church’s YouTube site went from 52 subscribers to over 100!

Then What?

After you qualify, here’s how to change your church’s URL (copied from YouTube).

1. Sign in to YouTube.
2. Click your profile picture in the top right.
3. On the left side, click Settings.
4. Then, also on the left, click Advancedsettings.
5. Under "Channel settings," select the link next to You're eligible for a custom URL. You'll only see this link if your channel is eligible.
6. In the "Get a custom URL" box, you'll see the custom URL(s) you've been approved for. You can't change the part in the gray box, but you may need to add a few letters or numbers to make the URL unique to you.
7. Carefully read and understand the "Custom URL Terms of Use" and select the box to agree to them, then click Change URL.
8. Once a custom URL has been approved, you can't request to change it, so make sure this is the custom URL you want before clicking Confirm choice.

Helping Each Other

Let’s all do this!

On your social media accounts (especially Twitter and Facebook), tell your pastor-friends that you’d like to help them, and ask if they’ll help you.

Together, we can reach even more people with the message that matters.

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