Muggins here missed one of the clicks in setting up our livestream this morning so while we have a much improved recording now uploaded we didn't manage a livestream this week. I will say, for anyone running a livestream, that OBS is a hugely impressive bit of kit.
Absolutely! The challenge, I find, as much as anything, is more about having a clear checklist of what needs to be done. It is especially challenging (IMHO) when you add something like Zoom into the mix.
Absolutely! The challenge, I find, as much as anything, is more about having a clear checklist of what needs to be done. It is especially challenging (IMHO) when you add something like Zoom into the mix.
tell me about it - live from the building with OBS, Zoom and facebook all in play
For reasons of control my preference would be to stream from OBS to Facebook, but at the moment I am finding that the streaming has to be from Zoom using OBS as a virtual camera. I’d rather be able to take a video feed from Zoom into OBS
For reasons of control my preference would be to stream from OBS to Facebook, but at the moment I am finding that the streaming has to be from Zoom using OBS as a virtual camera. I’d rather be able to take a video feed from Zoom into OBS
I'm using facebook messenger rooms, capturing the feed into OBS as an application window and then mixing in the hymns and the feed from the lectern camera before (when I remember to press the button) spitting it out into facebook live. Ours is complicated by the service not being led locally (a vacancy plus travel and car sharing restrictions make that impractical) so our feed is partly coming from our interim moderator's home and partly from the church.
Most of our small congregation are elderly and very few will be viewing any online services. Keeping in touch during the long first lockdown was mainly by telephone, as they don’t do email or even text messages. Therefore the whole idea of the church reaching people online during these times has not been relevant to our congregation.
We have decided that if churches are able to open again for public worship after 2nd December, on Sunday 6th December we are going to use the propers, readings etc for Advent 1 and make this our Advent Sunday. Our people will not have watched any online services for Advent Sunday or indeed been involved in any Zoom type services and so will liturgically have missed the beginning of Advent. We will then keep Advent 3 and Advent 4 on the following two Sundays. The readings for both Advent 2 and 3 focus on John the Baptist and so we decided to miss out Advent 2 this year.
At Christmas we have decided for the first time ever not to have a Midnight Mass. This is usually, along with Remembrance Sunday, our best attended service of the year. However, without the singing of carols, and the Mass having to be said, we decided that an earlier Mass may be more appropriate. We are now going to have a First Mass of Christmas with Blessing if the Crib at 6pm. We will have recorded carols played through the sound system but it won’t be quite the same. We haven’t decided what to do yet on Christmas Day as it’s always yes difficult, relying on retired priests as we do, to find someone available to celebrate on Christmas Day. If all of our congregation are quite happy with just the 6pm Mass on Christmas Eve, we may not have a service on Christmas Day this year as we never get many people on Christmas Day.
Sounds rather like my ideas for Our Place, though I hadn't thought of transferring Advent Sunday to 6th December.
A First Mass etc. on Christmas Eve may suffice, but could you perhaps borrow a Lay Reader (if no priest is available) to conduct a short Service of the Word on Christmas morning, maybe incorporating Prayers at the Crib? You never know - one or two Small Christians might turn up!
No final decision made yet about Christmas Day. We are going to speak to the congregation on 6th December to see whether there is actually any demand for a service. If some people really want a service we will have one. We have in recent years been getting 50+ at Midnight Mass but Christmas Day has on occasions been as low as half a dozen. It’s not a congregation or community that have a tradition of Christmas Day worship. Ten years without a priest hasn’t helped and even when we did have a priest we never got more than a dozen on Christmas Day. Parish Mass on Advent 4 is usually quite well attended (for us) and we do sometimes get a few children then.
We think we'll probably have our usual 8pm Christmas Eve Communion Service, plus 9.30am Christmas Day Family Service, both with pre-booking and a request that people come to one or the other (that usually happens anyway).
And no service on Sunday 27th. (We can do that, we're not bound by Canon Law).
Checking on the websites of two other local churches to see what they're doing over Christmas (bearing in mind that we're in Tier 3), I find that our closest neighbour (MOTR - Church A) is simply continuing with its 930am Sunday Eucharist, plus a Midnight Mass at 1130pm on Christmas Eve, and a 10am Eucharist on Christmas Day.
No Carol Service, Crib Service, or Christmas Fair/Fayre/Market/Bazaar/Bizarre...
They work in tandem with another MOTR church (the same priest is Vicar of both parishes), and Church B is having just its 11am Parish Communion on Advent 4, a *Walk In Nativity* on Christmas Eve (see below), and an 11am Communion on Sunday 27th (shared with Church A).
No Carol Service or Christmas Fair/Fayre/Market/Bazaar/Bizarre...
The Walk In Nativity sounds intriguing, and rather like a Christmas version of Stations of the Cross. Admission by pre-booked ticket only, all hands-face-space precautions to be observed, and the correct *bubbles* to be maintained. AIUI, small groups will be conducted around the church - which is huge, and has ample space - by narrators.
I shall be interested to learn in due course how it works, but it sounds quite imaginative to me!
Wish we'd thought of that, though our church building wouldn't lend itself to such an activity. One or two churches here are doing "Advent trails" round the neighbourhood - you follow a map and there are clues posted up on lamp-posts etc. A sort of non-arduous cross between Stations of the Cross and Orienteering, with a bit of Street Labyrinth thrown in ...
Our church has a nice courtyard that opens toward a street that’s one way on our block, and then ends and empties onto a main thoroughfare. We have received permission to close our block on the afternoon of the 24th so that we can have an outdoor service at 4:00, weather permitting. Because of the logistics, there will be no Communion. (We usually have 5:00 and 11:00 Communion services.).
In lieu of the 11:00 service and a Christmas morning service, we will pre-record services that can “drop” at 7:00 on Christmas Eve and on Christmas morning. We have been doing the “virtual Communion” thing, but because these are being recorded in advance, we will not have Communion for these services either.
Those two pre-recorded services are actually being recorded tonight. I was to be one of the two singers, but having just gotten home from a few days in the hospital yesterday, I’ll be staying home instead.
We will also have an outdoor prayer walk for our usual Longest Night service.
More ingenuity! And positive use of modern technology...
FatherInCharge has just sent me the draft of next Sunday's news bulletin (he knows that I am the local Spelling and Grammar Police). There is no mention of the proposed outdoor Carol Service/indoor Christmas mini-Bazaar on Sunday 20th, so they may be cancelled - unless he's made an error in not including them...
Indeed - I visited the half-finished one (many years ago, 'tis true) and was Not Impressed...
Aw, I rather like it, with the slightly incongruous steel(?) butressing just short of the chancel. It also has a special place in my heart as the place where my daughter was baptised.
My parish church, which I no longer attend, seems to have its only December service of Holy Communion next Sunday, 13th, with Family Worship on 20th and 25th, and two (repeat) Carol services in between. Nothing else after 25th until January. No Midnight Mass/ Christmas Day Communion ?
My new church is in a group of villages, two of which have Advent Trails, where a new window scene is lit up each day. Seems to me like a good way of getting whole households involved.
We musicians are getting together in an empty church to record Christmas stuff that will be played during the "broadcast" of what is normally our Christmas Eve children's Mass. His nibs will celebrate in a church that will be empty apart from whoever it is that presses "Play" at the right times.
This Mass with its congregation of 200+ including hoards of happy and excited children reeking of chocolate is usually the most joyful at Christmas. I will miss it.
Unless Nicola puts us into total lockdown there will be 5 Masses on Christmas Eve between 5pm and 11 pm and then 3 Masses on Christmas morning. Hopefully that will allow 400 people to attend. Usually there are about 1000 people who appear mostly out of the shadows at Christmas.
I heard last night of a church which recently re-opened for the first time since March. It is a large building with an elderly and dispersed congregation. They introduced booking.
Our musicians record their bits which are then mixed and used in a you tube service. All our people can access the YouTube - after lots of help from the AV team even ‘tho many are over 80 and over 90 years old. We also have Zoom services and in-person (no singing, book your distanced seat type thing) Sunday services. About 20 people attend the in-person services (Not the minister, she is vulnerable and shielding, she does the YouTube and Zoom services.)
All OK, and a good stop gap until the Real Thing resumes.
The church in the area where we are about to move is having a watch party, of the National Cathedral Christmas Eve service. It sounds like a lovely idea to me as I always watch the cathedral service anyway.
Unless Nicola puts us into total lockdown there will be 5 Masses on Christmas Eve between 5pm and 11 pm and then 3 Masses on Christmas morning. Hopefully that will allow 400 people to attend. Usually there are about 1000 people who appear mostly out of the shadows at Christmas.
How is the church managing the sanitisation issues between the masses? Here in NSW, and especially in our diocese, the rules require pews which have been occupied to be wiped down with disinfectant and the building aired for 60-90 minutes between events to minimise transmission. Inadequate air circulation has been identified as a likely transmission source in the recent Victorian second wave. Although congregational singing is now permitted, all worshippers must be masked to sing.
There are two churches in the parish which can be used alternately and sometimes at the same time.
I'm not sure if there is any rule about time here as one of the churches is currently used on a Sunday at 9.30 and then 11.00 and 12.15 and three times on a Sunday evening, partly by another parish, which does not have enough room for its parishioners.
It is the same with City Swimming Centres which have hourly sessions, ending at 45 minutes past the hour, leaving 15 minutes for disinfecting - only certain areas are used for changing.
In the church only half of the seats are used.
While there is a strict rule about maximum 50 people at a church service here in Scotland there can't surely ? be a rule about 60-90 minutes between services. I have just checked the times for the rc cathedral here and they are
Xmas Eve 3pm,4pm,5pm,6pm,7pm,8pm,9pm,10pm,11pm and midnight.
Xmas Day 8am,9am,10am,11am,12noon and 6pm.
Wow. Is the cathedral large enough to use different/separate parts or chapels at alternate hours, allowing enough time between services in that particular area or chapel?
The cathedral can easily accommodate several hundred or even 1000 people but remember that there is a very strict upper limit of 50 people. I have no idea what the plans are for the authorities at the cathedral butcertainly there are at least four separate aisles,two of which are chapels in their own right which could easily accommodate 50 socially distanced people,plus a large hall which is part of the building and which is occasionally used for religious services
Within 30 minutes of opening bookings for Christmas services all eight Masses in our parish were 'sold out' = apart from 9a.m. on Xmas morning where there are still a few spaces.
I should have said that there is Mass at 9 a.m. in both of the churches = one has already its full complement but there are still 5 places in the other.
The cathedral here in Watercress Land is inevitably fully booked for pretty much every service that requires booking (ie not daytime midweek services or 'normal' Sunday Eucharists - Evensong is the much bigger draw even on Sundays), and the Christmas Day Eucharist is too fully booked for me to feel really comfortable with it. Many local churches are having their crib/carol/Christmas Eve/Day services entirely online, which I can see the benefits of....but I'm someone who can't use Zoom, as my internet is too unstable/weak for it and it constantly disconnects. I don't think a stranger in my home to distribute Communion would really work for me either. It's been a bit frantic trying to find a Christmas Eve or Day service with slots available - I wonder how many people have ended up booking at a church they would never normally go to.
The church closest to the university is having a drive-in nativity in one of the uni car parks, where people can sing from within their cars - I don't have a car but it's certainly one of the better ideas I've seen locally, and would go if I could. Distanced Christingle and Messy Church services seem to be the big emphasis locally in general, which feels pretty alienating for anyone over 10 (also, I would have absolutely hated Messy Church even when I was under 10, but would have appreciated candles and sweets).
Hmm. One shouldn't advertise, but try Old St Paul's, Edinburgh (Scottish Episcopal Church) YouTube channel, if you can't physically get to a service, or can't participate in Zoom.
I'd provide a linky, but my PC is busy downloading/installing some new software, so it's all a bit slow. Just Google *Old St Paul's Edinburgh*.
High church liturgy,good singing by the cantors, and excellent preaching.
Our Place was planning to do a meditative, small, socially distanced live service at the church on Christmas Eve. We heard this afternoon that's been cancelled. (Plenty happening on Zoom though.)
That was quick - AIUI the extra restrictions (Tier 4) haven't been officially promulgated by Prime Ministerial Diktat yet, but maybe Your Place is being extra-careful.
Which is, under the circumstances, a Good Thing IMHO.
Unfortunately our area is a new big red hotspot within the south east, so no church of any kind for me (nor the socially distanced trip to the zoo tomorrow, sadly!) until things change in that regard. Thanks very much for the Old St Paul's Edinburgh tip, BF.
I was planning on going tomorrow for Advent 4, but then not for some time, given that some people are mixing over Christmas and the situation is worsening. Our place has plenty of RL, online recorded and Zooms as well as outdoors.
Carols by Candlelight - last night - zoomed. Recorded music, contributions from schools
Christmas Eve late pm Quiet and reflective. Booking only
Christmas Day - nativity online only
27th - back to normal - booking for "live" on a rota basis (25% of the church each week)
Yesterday morning - "normal" service, would usually have been our "Nativity" so plenty of pre-recorded bits by Junior Church, a craft activity and a brief cameo appearance by the young people themselves bearing gifts (that was a special moment). No booking but we were very nearly at capacity.
Last night - online carols via Zoom - I didn't manage the technology well but folk said they enjoyed it.
Christmas Eve Communion/Christmas Day family service - booking only, nearly full. Pre-recorded Christmas message on FB.
Sunday 27th - no service (nothing to do with Covid (we'd already decided not to meet) but in fact a good idea under the circumstances).
We opened again on 6th December and continued as from July to beginning of November with just one service a week at 11am on a Sunday for a Mass with recorded music. As I’ve reported before we only have a small congregation and most of them are elderly and vulnerable, not computer literate, but for the dozen who have been coming each week it is obviously meeting a very important need. Just getting out of their houses and seeing other people in a relatively safe, socially distanced environment is really helping them. We will continue with this as long we are permitted.
For Christmas we have cancelled our Midnight Mass and are not having a service on Christmas Day. We are just having a Mass with the Blessing of the Crib and recorded carols at 6.30pm on Christmas Eve. We have put a small notice of this on the church notice board but have not advertised it on our website or throughout the parish so that we can keep it to low numbers and again meet the needs of our elderly people. I doubt that we will get more than about 20 attend.
Zoomtivity yesterday, for which we were delivered a goody bag of cow mask, halo, crown and tea towel, as well as gold (choc) frankincense (candle) and myrr (hand cream). Good interactive fun.
Yesterday our online service with carols, and a small group also met in church for the first time. The service was combined between the two forms. Communion for those of us online (free church). Not sure what those on church did for that.
Online church Christmas Day.
We plan to trial services in church (warehouse) in January if still permitted. Sunday school appears to be earlier though (at the same time as morning prayer group), so I’m guessing they are separating us for now.
Comments
I'm using facebook messenger rooms, capturing the feed into OBS as an application window and then mixing in the hymns and the feed from the lectern camera before (when I remember to press the button) spitting it out into facebook live. Ours is complicated by the service not being led locally (a vacancy plus travel and car sharing restrictions make that impractical) so our feed is partly coming from our interim moderator's home and partly from the church.
We have decided that if churches are able to open again for public worship after 2nd December, on Sunday 6th December we are going to use the propers, readings etc for Advent 1 and make this our Advent Sunday. Our people will not have watched any online services for Advent Sunday or indeed been involved in any Zoom type services and so will liturgically have missed the beginning of Advent. We will then keep Advent 3 and Advent 4 on the following two Sundays. The readings for both Advent 2 and 3 focus on John the Baptist and so we decided to miss out Advent 2 this year.
At Christmas we have decided for the first time ever not to have a Midnight Mass. This is usually, along with Remembrance Sunday, our best attended service of the year. However, without the singing of carols, and the Mass having to be said, we decided that an earlier Mass may be more appropriate. We are now going to have a First Mass of Christmas with Blessing if the Crib at 6pm. We will have recorded carols played through the sound system but it won’t be quite the same. We haven’t decided what to do yet on Christmas Day as it’s always yes difficult, relying on retired priests as we do, to find someone available to celebrate on Christmas Day. If all of our congregation are quite happy with just the 6pm Mass on Christmas Eve, we may not have a service on Christmas Day this year as we never get many people on Christmas Day.
A First Mass etc. on Christmas Eve may suffice, but could you perhaps borrow a Lay Reader (if no priest is available) to conduct a short Service of the Word on Christmas morning, maybe incorporating Prayers at the Crib? You never know - one or two Small Christians might turn up!
I hope that whatever you do turns out well - lockdown permitting!
And no service on Sunday 27th. (We can do that, we're not bound by Canon Law).
Checking on the websites of two other local churches to see what they're doing over Christmas (bearing in mind that we're in Tier 3), I find that our closest neighbour (MOTR - Church A) is simply continuing with its 930am Sunday Eucharist, plus a Midnight Mass at 1130pm on Christmas Eve, and a 10am Eucharist on Christmas Day.
No Carol Service, Crib Service, or Christmas Fair/Fayre/Market/Bazaar/Bizarre...
They work in tandem with another MOTR church (the same priest is Vicar of both parishes), and Church B is having just its 11am Parish Communion on Advent 4, a *Walk In Nativity* on Christmas Eve (see below), and an 11am Communion on Sunday 27th (shared with Church A).
No Carol Service or Christmas Fair/Fayre/Market/Bazaar/Bizarre...
The Walk In Nativity sounds intriguing, and rather like a Christmas version of Stations of the Cross. Admission by pre-booked ticket only, all hands-face-space precautions to be observed, and the correct *bubbles* to be maintained. AIUI, small groups will be conducted around the church - which is huge, and has ample space - by narrators.
I shall be interested to learn in due course how it works, but it sounds quite imaginative to me!
The Advent Trail sounds like a Good Idea, though possibly subject to the vagaries of the We*ther...
Hmm. An Easter Trail might work, too...
In lieu of the 11:00 service and a Christmas morning service, we will pre-record services that can “drop” at 7:00 on Christmas Eve and on Christmas morning. We have been doing the “virtual Communion” thing, but because these are being recorded in advance, we will not have Communion for these services either.
Those two pre-recorded services are actually being recorded tonight. I was to be one of the two singers, but having just gotten home from a few days in the hospital yesterday, I’ll be staying home instead.
We will also have an outdoor prayer walk for our usual Longest Night service.
FatherInCharge has just sent me the draft of next Sunday's news bulletin (he knows that I am the local Spelling and Grammar Police). There is no mention of the proposed outdoor Carol Service/indoor Christmas mini-Bazaar on Sunday 20th, so they may be cancelled - unless he's made an error in not including them...
Our diocese has two cathedrals, neither of them larger than the Victorian parish church where I grew up.
(*The small-but-perfectly-formed one)
As opposed the the small and twice half-finished one.
Aw, I rather like it, with the slightly incongruous steel(?) butressing just short of the chancel. It also has a special place in my heart as the place where my daughter was baptised.
The family memories do, of course, make a difference.
My new church is in a group of villages, two of which have Advent Trails, where a new window scene is lit up each day. Seems to me like a good way of getting whole households involved.
This Mass with its congregation of 200+ including hoards of happy and excited children reeking of chocolate is usually the most joyful at Christmas. I will miss it.
Last Sunday there were 6 present at the service.
All OK, and a good stop gap until the Real Thing resumes.
How is the church managing the sanitisation issues between the masses? Here in NSW, and especially in our diocese, the rules require pews which have been occupied to be wiped down with disinfectant and the building aired for 60-90 minutes between events to minimise transmission. Inadequate air circulation has been identified as a likely transmission source in the recent Victorian second wave. Although congregational singing is now permitted, all worshippers must be masked to sing.
I'm not sure if there is any rule about time here as one of the churches is currently used on a Sunday at 9.30 and then 11.00 and 12.15 and three times on a Sunday evening, partly by another parish, which does not have enough room for its parishioners.
It is the same with City Swimming Centres which have hourly sessions, ending at 45 minutes past the hour, leaving 15 minutes for disinfecting - only certain areas are used for changing.
In the church only half of the seats are used.
Xmas Eve 3pm,4pm,5pm,6pm,7pm,8pm,9pm,10pm,11pm and midnight.
Xmas Day 8am,9am,10am,11am,12noon and 6pm.
9am on Christmas morning is (to me) the middle of the night, so it's understandable that a few spaces are available!
The church closest to the university is having a drive-in nativity in one of the uni car parks, where people can sing from within their cars - I don't have a car but it's certainly one of the better ideas I've seen locally, and would go if I could. Distanced Christingle and Messy Church services seem to be the big emphasis locally in general, which feels pretty alienating for anyone over 10 (also, I would have absolutely hated Messy Church even when I was under 10, but would have appreciated candles and sweets).
I'd provide a linky, but my PC is busy downloading/installing some new software, so it's all a bit slow. Just Google *Old St Paul's Edinburgh*.
High church liturgy,good singing by the cantors, and excellent preaching.
Which is, under the circumstances, a Good Thing IMHO.
I keep in touch via phone and email, though, and continue to contribute some £££...bills still have to be paid!
Christmas Eve late pm Quiet and reflective. Booking only
Christmas Day - nativity online only
27th - back to normal - booking for "live" on a rota basis (25% of the church each week)
Last night - online carols via Zoom - I didn't manage the technology well but folk said they enjoyed it.
Christmas Eve Communion/Christmas Day family service - booking only, nearly full. Pre-recorded Christmas message on FB.
Sunday 27th - no service (nothing to do with Covid (we'd already decided not to meet) but in fact a good idea under the circumstances).
For Christmas we have cancelled our Midnight Mass and are not having a service on Christmas Day. We are just having a Mass with the Blessing of the Crib and recorded carols at 6.30pm on Christmas Eve. We have put a small notice of this on the church notice board but have not advertised it on our website or throughout the parish so that we can keep it to low numbers and again meet the needs of our elderly people. I doubt that we will get more than about 20 attend.
Yesterday our online service with carols, and a small group also met in church for the first time. The service was combined between the two forms. Communion for those of us online (free church). Not sure what those on church did for that.
Online church Christmas Day.
We plan to trial services in church (warehouse) in January if still permitted. Sunday school appears to be earlier though (at the same time as morning prayer group), so I’m guessing they are separating us for now.