I livestreamed our Morning Worship again this morning. Even though I have been fortunate to have colleagues who have shared the main part of editing and uploading, and also have those who are willing to contribute, this strange world of virtual church now seems normal. I have lost count of how many services I have done like this.
My habit previously was to be up at Church around an hour before the service; with setting up, getting ready and chatting to folks on the way in there was sixty minutes worth of activity. From time to time there would be some catastrophic technical hitch and there would be a bit of a panic, but the service would go ahead without a laptop or PA system or whatever had packed up that day.
Now I find myself getting ready well over an hour before the service (whilst conveniently remaining at home) only to find that bit only takes a few minutes. This then leaves for a long period of waiting before being able to start streaming and (deep sigh of relief) see that it is working. We have had glitches with YouTube - but there is no way to communicate out that there is a problem. This time now actually feels quite "stage-frighty".
I do love that we can interact; greeting each other as we log in, or chip in during the prayers. This feels really healthy and what Church ought to be like.
They say that you can discern an organisations values by seeing what is actually values (as opposed, for example, to reading the waffle on a web-site) and so I am really proud of our Church Family here for whom togetherness has proved to be really important and simplicity is a good thing if it allows for that togetherness.
But this process of streaming Sunday and Wednesday mornings will continue as the new normal - the complexities of returning to using our Church building currently outweigh the seeming benefits and there seems minimal desire to do so at present.
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