Church Online: Best and Worst Moments

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  • cgichardcgichard Shipmate
    Well, these were both Orthodox Paschal services so singing is essential, but it did make me realize how very fortunate I am in my own church, small though it is.
  • The singing on our videos is wonderful ... as all I do is provide carefully selected links to hymns and songs on YouTube.
  • :lol:

    But well done, all you churches doing such things with the help of The Magic Electric Interweb.

    My contribution to Our Place's rather limited online stuff was a video of me, reading yesterday's Gospel, sent out to all FatherInCharge's email customers...

  • TrudyTrudy Heaven Host, 8th Day Host
    Live singing over Zoom is pretty awful in most cases. We've had some terrible examples. The musical group that my husband and I play in has been asked to provide a song for one of the services and we are going to have everyone pre-record their parts and our bass player (who is also a sound engineer) will mix it into one of those cool "split screen" videos -- which may not sound as good as we hope, but will definitely sound better than the couple with the guitar singing into their iPhone in the living room. Their desire to praise the Lord is so sincere, it's hard to admit just how bad it sounds.
  • RossweisseRossweisse Hell Host, 8th Day Host
    Our choir is trying to do a few things for each Sunday, but it's complicated: singing our part of a given anthem into a recording device, whilst listening, over headphones, to the accompaniment. So far, not enough people are doing it, so the blend is less than optimal. A tenor friend is going to try to show me how it's done.
  • Apart from the first post, all of this has been about how good virtual worship has been. Does anyone have any examples of things going wrong? They would help my people laugh.

    On March 29th the Bishop of Oxford and two of the suffragans did a live service from their homes, but it jumped backwards and forwards a few times, so there were some parts that I missed and some parts that I saw twice. (I don't know whether this affected everyone or just me).
  • The usual Sunday Worship at 8am on Radio 4 (link to BBC) comes from a range of places usually, varying between CofE cathedrals to the Methodist Central Hall, to chapels celebrating anniversaries, Lenten talks from pilgrim places or the Keswick Festival in 2015. It tends to alternate between styles of worship.

    One of the things that was fascinating during Holy Week was The Passion in Plants (link) - recorded on location in and around Hillfield Friary and elsewhere, the Holy Week story told through plants.
  • MiliMili Shipmate
    edited April 2020
    I started attending a smallish Uniting church about 18 months ago after the large Baptist church I was attending swung more conservative and my small group became disasterous (a long and painful story). My new church is very friendly and I usually found someone to chat to after the service, but still felt a bit awkward every week and still like a newcomer. Now we have been online for just over a month and the last two weeks a coffee zoom hour has been added. It has been a great way for me to get to know people, as in real life people don't like to wear name badges at church (me included), whereas in Zoom people's names appear on screen. After meeting altogether we get sorted into random groups of about five households and I have got to know some new people and other people a lot better. So strangely I will feel a lot more confident and part of the community when we can meet in person again.

    Others have also said they feel like after church chats are more meaningful online and even some of the very elderly have said there are aspects of online church they like better than attending! It is good for those who can't get to church. Everyone seems to have picked up the technology quickly and is feeling connected. We are lucky that though the church attendees skew older, their are a couple of younger men who are great with technology, so the service itself is running very smoothly and older people have been helped to access the technology and programs required to join in. The minister, musicians, bible readers, those doing children's talk and those doing prayers record a video of themselves during the week and the tech people put it all together with lyrics for the worship songs and hymns on screen to sing along too. Some people get very creative. This week's children's talk was the Road to Emmaus story acted out in a sandpit with lego.

    I also attend my bible study at another church (that I joined when between churches) on Zoom. We have worship led by a couple who are worship leaders at the church so it is high quality and the only disadvantage is having to mute mikes so we can't hear each other sing. It's good seeing people online there, but I am looking forward to being able to meet in person and share supper together as food is usually a big part of the evening!
  • I'm very interested to hear that @Mili, as I find chatting electronically difficult. You can't go and talk to one person; either everyone is talking at once, or folk fall silent as you say something commonplace about the weather.

    But I totally agree about the beauty of names being displayed!
  • Something I've noticed among the Igh Church stuff I watch is the ingenuity displayed by clergy in setting up some sort of home chapel, live-streaming Mass for the use of, without resorting to the kitchen (sorry, ++Justin).

    One chap has converted his dining-room into what is now known as St B's Mission Chapel, and uses it not only for daily and Sunday Mass, but also for Thursday Exposition and Benediction, complete with incense. He employs the handle of the (off-screen) French windows as a 'dumb acolyte' - somewhere to hang the thurible when he's not wielding it...

    Another priest of my acquaintance celebrated Mass yesterday in his Vicarage garden, demonstrating a few of the 101 uses there must be for an antique pine table, a matching chair, and various pottery candle-holders etc. It was a lovely sunny day, and a beautiful setting, with birdsong accompanying the words of the liturgy.
  • Mili wrote: »
    Now we have been online for just over a month and the last two weeks a coffee zoom hour has been added. It has been a great way for me to get to know people, as in real life people don't like to wear name badges at church (me included), whereas in Zoom people's names appear on screen. After meeting altogether we get sorted into random groups of about five households and I have got to know some new people and other people a lot better. So strangely I will feel a lot more confident and part of the community when we can meet in person again.
    Yes, my church does the same; before and after the zoom service is coffee time and we are sorted into small groups. Our church is quite large, so several hundred people attend, and I’m quite enjoying chatting to different people each week.
  • I thought I'd add some blurb from our church perspective; we're an inner city congregation of mostly older Caribbean people, and computer use is not at all universal. So we're doing phone-in conference-call church. It's pretty clunky, very 'live' (my family is suddenly the music group, as we possess a few instruments and a hymn book, and can sing - so we sing live down the phone). But it's very real, as the young people say, and the oldies all spend a good while saying hello to each other and asking 'is it over yet' in the middle of the prayers - and then saying thank-you-so-much-that-was-lovely to everyone when it really is over. It's not much more chaotic than a normal Sunday morning, and the gas bill is smaller :smiley:
  • TrudyTrudy Heaven Host, 8th Day Host
    We haven't been having a coffee-hour or social time after the Zoom service (I'm afraid it would be pretty chaotic if we tried) but most of us watch the service with our own video turned off, and then at the end of the service the speaker asks everyone to turn their video on so we can wave at each other. It's reliably my favourite part of the service.

    I've been thinking that all the practice everyone has been getting in online worship is going to be important in a few months, since I imagine in a lot of places (certainly here) there's going to be a situation where churches are allowed to reopen for services, but a large number of elderly, ill, and otherwise immuno-compromised people are going to avoid gatherings as long as there's any chance of the virus circulating in the community. I don't think churches are going to be able to go back to "regular" church without thinking about how to livestream or otherwise share church services with the much larger number of "shut-ins" we're going to have over the next few years.
  • MiliMili Shipmate
    Robert Armin I think it works at my church because there is already a chatty, friendly culture. Not everyone joins the zoom coffee. Last week I think there were about 130 households watching the service and then maybe 30 to 40 households stayed on afterwards to chat. I guess Zoom selects for the people who like to hang around after church and chat and don't mind small talk. Quite a few are involved in various ministries so we talked about how those are going, how everyone is coping with what Australians are now calling iso (we shorten everything), what people have been doing - work from home, puzzles, crosswords etc. and future plans, plus world issues in general especially to do with the virus. This week two of the ladies in my group were members of the church Tai Chi group and were discussing how they might run aspects of that through Zoom, though apparently doing the type that uses swords would be too difficult!

    I have also been attending the morning service from the charismatic Anglican church I attended in London in the evening Australia time. Some people I knew from their are still there, including one of the vicars. Their services are not much different than an low Anglican church, but with a video of a guy flag dancing beforehand and lots of prophesying in the chat section by a small number of congregants. Even though I am not particularly charismatic I have really good memories of my time there back in 2004 and 2006 so have enjoyed reconnecting online.
  • So much best. How about worst.....?

    On Sunday I "attended" a neighbouring church (since I didn't need to listen to my own service!) AGHH! It began with a mother and daughter sitting in an attic room and singing to a guitar. Badly. Tunelessly. Remorselessly. And at length. Then the minister appeared with a Bible reading and sermon. They were fine. He is a good minister. But he never once mentioned the current situation with we are living in and which his congregants are trying to make sense of. It was an excellent exposition of bearing fruit that will last, but it could have been anywhere, any time. Then back to the attic and the "music". (It wasn't just that it wasn't my style of music, it was so badly done.) At that point I gave up. But unless the attic duo also did some praying there was no prayer.

    I must say I was surprised. But not in a good way.
  • Cathscats wrote: »
    Then the minister appeared with a Bible reading and sermon. They were fine. He is a good minister. But he never once mentioned the current situation with we are living in and which his congregants are trying to make sense of. It was an excellent exposition of bearing fruit that will last, but it could have been anywhere, any time.
    I fear that there are many ministers who do this on a regular basis, and not just at the present time. There could be a number of reasons:
    - "Compartmentalising" life into religious and mundane sectors, and not expecting one to impinge upon the other.
    - Living in a bubble of comfort and not thinking of the very real woes and troubles of others.
    - Regarding religion as a highly personal, bringing comfort to the soul but not much else.
    - Recognising that many people are stressed and worried, so wanting to make church a brief time of respite and escape.
    - Believing that "my job is to expound God's Word, it is the Holy Spirit who will apply it to peoples' hearts".
    - Fear of being regarded as "controversial" or, even worse, "political".

    To my mind one has to make the effort to apply one's message to present actualities, albeit without simply turning it into an earthbound moral or social address.

    Or am I being unfair? Sometimes I find it easier to apply the message to "real life" than others.

  • Our pastor live-streams a sermon twice weekly. I find it a relief to have that half an hour of biblical teaching, and no direct mention of 'the current situation'.
    Plenty of that is brought up in the weekly Zoom prayer meeting,
  • I take the point although I don't really agree. However we don't have anything on Zoom.
  • Our pastor live-streams a sermon twice weekly. I find it a relief to have that half an hour of biblical teaching, and no direct mention of 'the current situation'.
    Plenty of that is brought up in the weekly Zoom prayer meeting,

    It will be brought up for prayer in the meeting I am sure. Is there also an attempt to address it by means of scripture? You see, especially with church on line when you don’t know who might be coming in invisibly, I think if we don’t show that our faith and the present day touch, then we can be thought by that casual visitor to be living in a bubble. I would have thought the straight. Bile teaching would be more fitted to the prayer meeting. But then maybe your live-stream is not publicly available.

    And no prayer! (My mystery online church, not yours @Roseofsharon)
  • The Sunday sermons I've heard recently, courtesy of the Scottish Episcopal Church, have all been firmly rooted in Scripture (usually the day's Gospel), and equally firmly applied to The Present Situation.

    As also are the intercessions.
  • Morning Prayer on zoom is working quite well for us. Most people have their video on, which I like - it gives much more of a sense of "all in this together" when you see people reciting prayers with you (with muted mics) than if you just see names and photos. And of course the occasional household pet bombs the video. (And yes, Milli, we have lots of people who like matching names with faces, too.)

    On the other hand, our Morning Prayer is getting longer and longer. Many people want it to "be like normal church" and so the choir is recording a couple of hymns, the organist plays a couple of pieces on his ersatz home organ, and then we get played these at appropriate points. I hate it. I love singing in church (even though I sing badly) but this just leaves me cold. I'd rather just accept that, like communion, music is going to be one of those things that we have when we can all gather in person again. Alas, I seem to be in the minority. Perhaps I'll try the early-morning Morning Prayer, and see if that's better, but I fear that with a recording of the choir just a button-click away, everyone's going to get it.
  • Gramps49Gramps49 Shipmate
    I never realized just how out of synch we are when it comes to trying to say the Lord's prayer via Zoom. We all had our own paces and we could not agree on some phrases (do not put us to the test/deliver us from evil) Poor Zoom, trying to put us all together.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    "Do not put us to the test" is very different to "Save us from the time of trial" which we use. It seems much closer to the KJ translation of "Lead us not into temptation" than ours.
  • Our phone conference thing has so much lag in it that when we try to say the Lord's prayer, it gets slower, and slower, and slower - but no man / woman gets left behind :smile:
  • TrudyTrudy Heaven Host, 8th Day Host
    Not a worship service, but all my co-workers tried to sing "Happy Birthday" today over Zoom, to be recorded and sent to one of our supervisors who is celebrating his 65th birthday in hospital ... awaiting heart surgery ... while not allowed to have family in to visit because of the Covid situation. We all meant well, bless our hearts, but the result was to quote the script directions in a famous Monty Python sketch "quite horrifyingly unmusical."

    I'm sure he will be cheered by the fact that we thought of him but for me it was a vivid illustration of why trying to do group singing over Zoom with everyone's mic on is a terrible, terrible idea.

    I think for a worship service it's nice to play a good, pre-recorded piece of music and then Zoom worshippers (mics off) can choose to either sing along or listen, as they are moved to do so. But live singing over Zoom -- even more so if it includes any attempt for a group of people in separate places to sing together -- does not produce good results.
  • A colleague posted this on the Book of Face: does it ring any bells? https://tinyurl.com/y8su9y5c

  • John Spiers is putting together joint sessions (pub folk sessions), is doing it by recording his part, getting others to send in videos of themselves joining in, including the chat, and then putting the whole thing together as one completed film
  • Brilliant! Have you watched the Cory Band one?
  • BakerBaker Shipmate
    There is no such thing as a goo online service.
  • BakerBaker Shipmate
    That's "good" of course, not "goo"
  • Baker wrote: »
    There is no such thing as a goo online service.

    There might be if you have a 3 year old in the house.
  • cgichardcgichard Shipmate
    Baker wrote: »
    There is no such thing as a good online service.
    Agreed. At least for those of us whose "spirituality" intrinsically requires physical/material expression.
  • I beg to differ. In my experience, they take a bit of getting used to, but I have found them very helpful. Beats being stuck at home and not being able to worship with others, in my humble o.
  • Bishops FingerBishops Finger Shipmate
    edited May 2020
    Same here. Excellent online Eucharist from Scotland this morning.
  • A lovely service here too, at the online version of my charismatic church (just about to listen to the sermon, as the service is via live Zoom and sermon pre-recorded). We pray, someone sings and we share communion in our homes. At the after service chat I was put in a room with a group of people from various walks of life, one of whom I didn’t know (our church has 400-500 people over 2 services). I’m feeling I’m getting to know our community better via the online meetings.
    In some ways our church is slightly more formal now in that the online short service doesn’t have room for informal individual contributions in the form of prayers and praise, which would be a normal feature of our services. But different people leading various bits each week in different styles helps to loosen this formality. There are, however, many opportunities to pray for people in our chats afterwards as we hear about people’s lives and that is very enriching.
  • MiliMili Shipmate
    Which parts of church are you missing cgichard? I hope you are able to find other ways to meet your spiritual needs at this time and connect with God and other Christians. I suppose a lot of how we experience church and the types of churches we gravitate to depends on our personality and formative religious or conversion experiences. Although I am looking forward to returning to in person church, as an introvert sometimes I feel a little overwhelmed or socially awkward at church, especially after the service. Even to the point of feeling dizzy sometimes. It's something I don't miss at online church. My church serves communion to the seated congregation, but sometimes I visit friends' or family members' churches where congregants get up and get communion from servers at front or back of the church. Even that makes me a little anxious I will somehow mess up and I always feel relieved when back in my seat.
  • DardaDarda Shipmate
    Same here. Excellent online Eucharist from Scotland this morning.

    If I were a mystery worshipper, the distraction question would have been answered by the reading of the epistle. This came from the bar of a pub, and I spent most of the time trying to decipher the labels of single malt bottles on the shelves behind the reader! At least it made a change from trying to read the titles of books behind the reader.
  • :lol:

    Yes, I was distracted, too! Looked like a nice little pub, though...hopefully, it'll be open again soon, choice single malts for the dispensing of.
  • It has been interesting to see which of the Scottish bishops has coped best with preaching to camera. Certainly Bishop Mark was excellent this morning, as was Bishop Kevin last week. I have an embarrassing admittance that I cannot look at Bishop Kevin without thinking of General Staal of the 10th Sontaran Battlefleet.
  • I was amused by Bishop Mark's admission that he requested a proper shepherd's crook, so that he could lean on it, and blether...
    :wink:
  • Online church meetings are becoming a curse. Too easy to set up, and opportunities for long winded grandstanding. It used to be easy to call in sick or come up with a plausible excuse for staying home, but how to get out of these things? I managed one because I really was throwing up at the time, but has anyone got any other serviceable excuses for skiving off?
  • Your broadband connection has fai
    :wink:
  • Online church meetings are becoming a curse. Too easy to set up, and opportunities for long winded grandstanding. It used to be easy to call in sick or come up with a plausible excuse for staying home, but how to get out of these things? I managed one because I really was throwing up at the time, but has anyone got any other serviceable excuses for skiving off?

    I have a game I like to play in zoom meetings. It's called "count the number of people who have turned off their video". It's rather similar to the game I play in physical meetings, when I count the people who are reading email rather than paying attention.
  • I take the point, but my camera has a tendency to switch itself off when I don't want it to!
  • I take the point, but my camera has a tendency to switch itself off when I don't want it to!

    That's it, lay the ground in advance so it doesn't look suspicious.
  • Bishops FingerBishops Finger Shipmate
    edited May 2020
    Hehe...a mind-reading camera, perhaps?
  • No, just a very naughty one with a mind of its own.
  • BF has it. Our connection out here is indeed a bit wobbly. We're going to arrange a signal so my Dear Wife switches off the power to the modem if things go bad, and I just sit here helplessly waiting for it to come back up again, which takes five or so minutes.
  • Schwarze WinkelSchwarze Winkel Shipmate Posts: 5
    edited May 2020
    This is an interesting thread and I thank all who have writen something. I have had different experiences:

    my local RC church in Wrocław started doing live liturgies on YouTube via a local newspaper for the Easter Triduum and continue doing them on Sundays. I find live to be a lot better than pre-recorded services as one feels some kind of connection, though as I have kids to put asleep in the end I put them to sleep first and then started the video, which meant that I was watching the Holy Saturday Liturgy till about 1am. Despite everthing, that I had the lights off (I watched in my children's bedroom) and I had candles lit in front of my icons it felt like my usual prayers at home, and the video gave me some kind of usual service feeling. So good on mystery, but not good on community.

    my local Anglican church (about six hours away in Warsaw) are good online. The Sunday morning (they stream every day MP and EP) services (which were Eucharists until recently) see different people doing the readings, intercessions etc.., three in the clergy team do different bits, and we wave at each other for the Peace. Hymns are either sung to a pre-recorded accompaniment on the piano, or we are supposed to listen to someone singing them a capella, though we are muted. I don't see why we couldn't all sing a capella, as we don't hear each other anyway. The priest there is very personable and there's a sense of community. My only issue is that they started doing agapes instead of the Eucharist, which I have never experienced in the physical form, and that I haven't been to the church for years, I'm not part of the community; community appears to be the focus.

    Still, the priest does daily short videos and one on Holy Friday moved me.

    A priest I know via Facebook has an excellent website with a promotion of Spiritual Communion, which I find useful. https://chadmark.blog/spiritual-communion/

    Edit: there was a problem in the last service I turned up to, in that someone attended who spammed the chatbox with bizarre comments, which one person resonded to in a vulgar way (using German, which I understood). I don't know if the chatbox is still being enabled.
  • Online church meetings are becoming a curse. Too easy to set up, and opportunities for long winded grandstanding. It used to be easy to call in sick or come up with a plausible excuse for staying home, but how to get out of these things? I managed one because I really was throwing up at the time, but has anyone got any other serviceable excuses for skiving off?

    I have a game I like to play in zoom meetings. It's called "count the number of people who have turned off their video". It's rather similar to the game I play in physical meetings, when I count the people who are reading email rather than paying attention.

    We've all been asked to turn off video as much as possible for the sake of attendees with crap bandwidth. (Yay)
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