Roughly fifteen minutes, once. After this, a service is one tap on the iPad. Do it on a weekday rather than five minutes before a service.
Use the account that manages your church's YouTube channel, not a personal one. Whatever you sign in with is the account Steeple Cast will create broadcasts on. If your channel is a Brand Account, sign in with a Google account that has manager access to it.
Go to the dashboard and choose Sign in with Google. The first time, it creates your church's record automatically. Give it your church's name on the Account tab.
On the Account tab, press Connect YouTube and approve the permission. Steeple Cast asks to manage live broadcasts on your channel — it uses that to create each service's broadcast and to set its title, privacy and thumbnail. It does not read your other videos or post anything else.
You can disconnect at any time from the same page, or from your Google account's security settings.
On the Stream tab, set a title pattern. Placeholders fill themselves in
each week, so Sunday {period} Worship — {month} {day}, {year} becomes
Sunday Morning Worship — September 27, 2026. A live preview shows what this
week's would be.
Set the privacy too. Private and unlisted are both sensible while you are testing; only choose public when you mean it. Add a thumbnail on the same card if you have artwork — any size will do, it is resized for you.
Also on the Stream tab. If YouTube ever refuses to create a broadcast, the app can fall back to a persistent stream key so the service still goes out. The app will stop and tell you it is doing that, because a fallback stream carries whatever title and privacy that key already has.
Open Steeple Cast on the iPad and pick Director. That role is iPad-only; phones get Camera or Remote Mixer.
On the dashboard's Devices tab, press Pair a device. On the iPad, go to Settings then Connect to Steeple Cast, and scan the QR code. The code is single-use and expires after ten minutes.
The iPad now knows where to stream. On the Stream panel its source will read Church account.
Open the app on each iPhone, choose Camera, and enter the join code shown on the iPad's Video panel. Phones do not need pairing with the dashboard, only the iPad does.
The Stream panel's Health card shows what is actually reaching the network, not what the encoder is producing. If it says the uplink is struggling, ease the bitrate down; it changes live and viewers see nothing. If you get stuck, the support page has where to write.