Worship in times of COVID

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We're doing the best we can with what we've got. Good Friday service today was a planned recorded/spliced service of a zoom between the rev and two of our vams and some previous recordings.
 
Watched a video from one of the churches I go to occasionally and took communion online this morning. So if you're interested, have your bread and wine ready.
They've been video taping in one of the offices at the church and other times the pastor does it from his home during COVID.
The church seems to attract a lot of young people, young families etc and you can probably see why....but I go sometimes to enjoy the energy and casual approach to hearing about Jesus. The message is fairly fundamental and pretty well what I was taught growing up....not necessarily what I believe. But I will post it to give more ideas for online worship. Just click where it says play on youtube.
Message starts at 11:10 if you want to skip the singing.
 
BetteTheRed said:
I'm putting this right out here as liking what we offered as "better".
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The fact remains, this is what is bringing a lot of young people back into the church and creating a foundation to know God and the Bible, for where ever that may lead them. Of course, because of COVID this is not what a church service would resemble, but there is usually a lot of singing with around 40 younger people in the choir that take turns on Sundays. And they are a very active missional church within the community and do amazing work. It's more of a contemporary service, that's for sure. Some churches these days will have both a traditional and contemporary service on Sundays.
 
I talked to an ancient friend yesterday about the preoccupation of churches with the edifices and nothing of a concern for the disadvantaged.

This was their social construct for years ... but in elderly slowdown ... the mental pattern alters ...

PS: it was a strong fundamental, evangelical church that has turned militantly industrial ... no room for the wee folk! They peddled little understood salvation and discounted intelligence and info ... best if we didn't know control system C*S form?
 
paradox3 said:
I am really not sure all churches need to be offering on-line services. ...
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Maybe not, but why not?
Organizing a service on Zoom or some similar collaborative platform is not that difficult, and for our parish at least, it has been a unifying moment for our community. We probably could have achieved the same with, say, a common broadcast of a sermon, music... but the exchanges and discussions, both during the service and afterwards, have been very interesting and uplifting. Much more so than just watching Youtube or Facebook.

I, for one, would like to keep parts of that once we go back to in-person worship. Our Sunday services are joined by a few former parishioners, including one whom I know lives in a "church desert". He probably won't drive 700 km to church on Sunday! And we haven't been able to create in-person weekday events like prayers or a Bible study because people live and work in different parts of the city. So I hope people would like to continue online weeknight meetings.
 
Church is a social thing of reduced groupings as the great tyranny does not like the wee parts forming alternate phalanx!

Odd thing both sides of the same wall ... we build em for odd rationale when considering the greatest directives ... such stuff is buried in the power of myth that runs contrary to the power of love and also the power of knowledge ... thus mediums ... the 4th part of the come around! Some people see this quarter as St Griel ... a crystal veil ... martyrdom of altruism ?

PS: I do believe in soul ... it is a great myth to walkabout with down under ... that gothic sensation ... as the Shadow Nose! You can smell the stinkers ... if you have some of the common sense ... homeopathic respect? All encompassing ... with vast implications!
 
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Gotta say, this Easter had none of the mystery, wonder and triumph of previous years.......

Being an old Luddite, I'm not privy to Zoom -and thus have to depend on Youtube church services. It occurs to me that many regular church goers are elderly and thus are in my position.

Without fully human folks interacting, smiling, hugging, it's like watching an old black and white movie instead of colour. In fact it felt more like watching a movie than taking part in a church service. Everything seemed pushed away, distant - even, sadly, the Spirit.
Of course, I understand the reasons for the lock-down, and support them. But, it did leave me feeling flat -just saying......
 
Mendalla said:
But I watched Pickering's service last week and while it was fairly simple, just a camera or two, and it came across fairly well. They put hymn lyrics and such on their usual screens rather than editing them into the video, which worked fairly well. I'm sure a fair bit of work went into it, but once they've done it once or twice, I imagine it won't be too demanding.
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We are, indeed, keeping it fairly simple. Thanks for watching! We've adapted the service a little bit to make it more recording-friendly and better suited to the situation but the decision was to basically offer a fairly standard service of worship to offer a sense of "normal" to people as much as we can. Although to be honest our original plan was to do something live via Zoom, but that didn't work out as we had hoped. In the end, I think recording and posting is a better format for us. The hardest thing about it is preaching to an empty church. Preaching is a dynamic thing and as a preacher I'm continually feeding off the congregation's response and adjusting the sermon as I go along. With no congregation there's no sense of how the thing is going. I'm also used to wandering out of the pulpit from time to time but that seems silly when there's no one there (well, our other minister, music director and tech person are there, but no one else.)
 
revsdd said:
We are, indeed, keeping it fairly simple. Thanks for watching! We've adapted the service a little bit to make it more recording-friendly and better suited to the situation but the decision was to basically offer a fairly standard service of worship to offer a sense of "normal" to people as much as we can. Although to be honest our original plan was to do something live via Zoom, but that didn't work out as we had hoped. In the end, I think recording and posting is a better format for us. The hardest thing about it is preaching to an empty church. Preaching is a dynamic thing and as a preacher I'm continually feeding off the congregation's response and adjusting the sermon as I go along. With no congregation there's no sense of how the thing is going. I'm also used to wandering out of the pulpit from time to time but that seems silly when there's no one there (well, our other minister, music director and tech person are there, but no one else.)
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That's kind of the weird part about watching it, too. Rather like watching a play on stage with no audience.

Didn't do church today. My mood is leading elsewhere right now. A Zoom service would be interesting to try, but not sure where I would go for that.
 
Also, if music is important to your congregation, which it obviously is to us, Zoom is poor, in that the way that it transmits audio data is apparently subject to lags and things, which really screw up the tempo. Not a huge deal in a meeting, but can just hurt a musician's ear when they've done a lovely job of a hymn and a soloist or a fiddle, etc. Our services have all been pre-recorded.
 
PilgrimsProgress said:
Without fully human folks interacting, smiling, hugging, it's like watching an old black and white movie instead of colour. In fact it felt more like watching a movie than taking part in a church service. Everything seemed pushed away, distant - even, sadly, the Spirit.
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I hear you! Zoom services are not really working for me as a worship substitute. Although today our minister said something in her sermon which has me thinking & I am planning to email her tomorrow. The best thing about Zoom is seeing folks from the congregation. Wow, do I ever miss them!
 
The planned Drive-In service in my town was cancelled by Public Health (or someone). It was deemed unacceptable as it was a mass gathering. Strange decision as there was one held in Edmonton!
 
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