Church Online: Best and Worst Moments

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  • Your broadband connection has fai
    :wink:

    Fun y you sho ld h ve sa d th t. My con ection ke t drop ing o t all t rou h this ev ning's me ting and I mis ed ov r ha f of it.
  • DooneDoone Shipmate
    Your broadband connection has fai
    :wink:

    Fun y you sho ld h ve sa d th t. My con ection ke t drop ing o t all t rou h this ev ning's me ting and I mis ed ov r ha f of it.

    🤣🤣🤣
  • One of the best online church moments this morning, though it meant getting up at 05:30 for it (we're about 3,000 miles away). We joined a Zoom service from a lively little church in Glasgow where a friend was becoming a member - a rather special occasion. It came from everyone's homes, of course, but there was good preaching, good music, and it was a memorable time, even if the Zoom sound quality wasn't great. There was a good feeling of worshipping with friends.
  • TrudyTrudy Heaven Host, 8th Day Host
    It's lovely when Zoom meetings are actually able to give you that feeling of worshipping together. My favourite part of our services is still the minute at the very end where they tell everyone to turn on their cameras and we all wave to each other.
  • ChoristerChorister Shipmate
    I am so grateful that the regular one I watch chooses to present St. Martin in the Fields choral scholars (under licence) rather than some well meaning Zoom singers. Also, the cathedral one I follow which has a very talented organist playing the hymns and voluntaries. The spoken parts of the service is more mixed. I have to confess I shamelessly ffwd through some of that, may God forgive my soul.
  • cgichardcgichard Shipmate
    Bumping this thread to share this delightful video clip of a cat helping itself to the Dean of Canterbury's milk as he preaches online.
  • Hehe...never work with children, or animals...
    :wink:
  • Somebody has to say it... There must be a Canterbury Tail in that story.
  • Bishops FingerBishops Finger Shipmate
    edited July 2020
    :lol:
    Well said, That Boy - go to the top of the class!

    Actually, Chaucer had enough of a GSOH to appreciate such an unlooked for, yet serendipitous, moment...
    :wink:

    I can't quite call up enough of my Middle-English to work out what he might have written, but perhaps some more knowledgeable Shipmate could come up with something about the Catte?
  • HedgehogHedgehog Shipmate
    cgichard wrote: »
    Bumping this thread to share this delightful video clip of a cat helping itself to the Dean of Canterbury's milk as he preaches online.
    I am convinced that cats are proof that God loves us. I have been having a horrible, horrible, not-very-good week...and that video turns it all around. If my suffering was the price to pay to get that video, I am coming out waaaaaaaaay ahead on the deal.

  • cgichardcgichard Shipmate
    @Hedgehog I am so glad it made such a difference to your whole week. I've been wracking my brains, without success, to recall what blog or forum pointed me to it, but it was definitely too good not to share. The Dean's rather feline smile contributes to the effect, I think.

    May the coming week be far, far better for you. You could always bookmark that video to watch again should things around you turn and start to go downhill.
  • We live-streamed our Parish Mass this morning (thanks to our Churchwarden and his Smartphone).

    It went well, but the position of the camera was such that, on film, it looks as though there was only one person in the congregation - our Devoted Old Gentleman, Uncle H (96 back in February).

    There were a few others (!), but it was lovely to see Uncle H back in church - his first Communion since lockdown - and to see the joyous sparkle in his eyes...
    :grin:
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    Miss Amanda seems to have attended a candidate for the worst online service.
  • My church has been live streaming the service since March. Problems cutting in and out. Problems with the sound. Problems with camera angles. Today praise God all went very very well. They finally got it right.
  • NenyaNenya Shipmate
    Our Lot put out a recorded service on Sunday morning and a short midweek slot as well. Sunday morning worship will contain members of the worship band singing and playing a song from their homes, with harmonies etc, which is then all put together. The mixing works ok sometimes; other times, not so much.

    One real bonus has been the emergence in the worship of one of the youth group whom we never see on a Sunday morning but who has a beautiful voice and will often sing a solo.
  • Does it count if the worst moment is in the preparation? Fool that I am, I offered to prepare DVD copies of our recorded worship offering. I finished the cut of the recording just after midnight last night and spent most of today wrestling with DVD-Rs. I eventually had to settle for burning them in NTSC format as all our shot video was 30fps and the conversion to 25fps PAL was screwing with the soundtrack. On the plus side I now know a lot more about video editing than I did 72 hours ago.
  • Trudy wrote: »
    Since I'm Seventh-day Adventist, we got our first online worship service over yesterday. Our pastor had plans to livestream, but his livesteaming wasn't working, so he ended up pre-recording a sermon that was just him sitting at his desk preaching, then uploaded it yesterday morning. It was fine, but definitely did not have the feel of a "worship service."

    Right now I'm watching the livestream from a local Anglican church where both the priests are friends of mine. They are doing it from the church and trying to have as full a service as possible, only without a congregation. The one thing that's making me laugh is a bottle of hand sanitizer on the altar. Before either one of them comes up to the pulpit to speak they stop at the altar, pump the hand sanitizer, and rub it on their hands in a way that looks very ceremonial. I wonder if many churches who are streaming services are making this part of the ritual?

    In my Anglican Church ( medieval/ rural) we have a sanitizer bottle in the porch, right in front of the remains of the medieval stoupe for Holy Water. What goes around, comes around......;-)
  • Certainly our Anglican parish priest here in Australia has incorporated the sanitising of her hands into the manual acts, firstly as she reaches the altar at the sursum corda, then immediately prior to the distribution and again after the ablutions. She also does so at the west door immediately prior to the processional, and if her hands go remotely near her face in the course of the service.
  • Trudy wrote: »
    Since I'm Seventh-day Adventist, we got our first online worship service over yesterday. Our pastor had plans to livestream, but his livesteaming wasn't working, so he ended up pre-recording a sermon that was just him sitting at his desk preaching, then uploaded it yesterday morning. It was fine, but definitely did not have the feel of a "worship service."

    Right now I'm watching the livestream from a local Anglican church where both the priests are friends of mine. They are doing it from the church and trying to have as full a service as possible, only without a congregation. The one thing that's making me laugh is a bottle of hand sanitizer on the altar. Before either one of them comes up to the pulpit to speak they stop at the altar, pump the hand sanitizer, and rub it on their hands in a way that looks very ceremonial. I wonder if many churches who are streaming services are making this part of the ritual?

    In my Anglican Church ( medieval/ rural) we have a sanitizer bottle in the porch, right in front of the remains of the medieval stoupe for Holy Water. What goes around, comes around......;-)

    :lol:

    Our Place (early 20thC urban Anglo-Carflick) duly removed the Holy Water stoup from the porch, replacing it with the 2020 equivalent...

    I have yet to see anyone signing their forehead with the Cross, using the sanitizer, but someone's bound to do it, sometime...
    :wink:

    We're still experimenting with live-streaming - our churchwarden today found a better camera position, but I think we're going to have to move altar (and priest) a little closer to the congregation, so as to improve the sound quality.

    TBTG, most of our chancel furnishings are portable...and we have a neat folding lectern which will suffice for most of the Ministry of the Word - readings, Gospel, and preachifying.

  • I use my laptop to record the services and soon found (a) that I didn't the mschine directly in front of me and (b) that the built-in microphone wasn't up to the job. I invested in a nifty little webcam and a microphone which both plug in via USB, at a cost of about £65 (more expensive models are available).
  • At the risk of earning a scolding for waking a thread that had been sleeping soundly, we've been told by our minister that full services are no longer required on line. He has learned that hymns/songs are not wanted by the on line audience, and only minimal prayer and a sermon will suffice. People do not have time for any more. Thus it was that this morning's service was just over 24 minutes long with a sermon lasting almost 20 minutes. I gave him somewhat less than that of my time, and went on to something more contemplative and helpful elsewhere.

    Am I completely out of line here? Does anyone else feel this is in fact a better way to conduct remote worship?
  • Nick TamenNick Tamen Shipmate
    Am I completely out of line here? Does anyone else feel this is in fact a better way to conduct remote worship?
    I don’t think you’re out of line at all. I think your minister is.

  • We are videoing just the Gospel and sermon for Facebook, though we have a full service in person. But the list of prayer needs didn't seem appropriate to broadcast (the personal ones, I mean) and the music is maybe not so engaging to those who can't actually sing. The creed and the other readings could be included, but given the audience we have (which likely includes non-Christians), we decided not to test anyone's patience. The sermon does run between 15 and 22 minutes, though that's all right with our audience.
  • CathscatsCathscats Shipmate
    That is so weird. I am preparing to go back to in person services but will be maintaining the online partly because we will have strict numerical limits for each building, but also because we will be able to include the music and people really want the music. They don’t really want to hear me go on and on.
  • Gee DGee D Shipmate
    The latest regulations in NSW (can't speak of other States) now allow singing as long as social distancing is maintained at the prescribed level, and also that masks are worn while actually singing. So we'll be back for sung Eucharist this Sunday (the Dudman, I'd imagine).
  • PriscillaPriscilla Shipmate
    We are hoping to have “blended” services when we start back.
    This might avoid the problem we had the other week - I was rotated to do the readings, and halfway through, one of our cats decided to walk across the back of the chair and put her paw on my shoulder. It was very difficult to hold it together and not to have a fit of the giggles!
  • NenyaNenya Shipmate
    Priscilla wrote: »
    We are hoping to have “blended” services when we start back.
    This might avoid the problem we had the other week - I was rotated to do the readings, and halfway through, one of our cats decided to walk across the back of the chair and put her paw on my shoulder. It was very difficult to hold it together and not to have a fit of the giggles!
    I don't think that's a problem - I love getting glimpses like that into people's lives and families and I think most people do. I watch the daily morning prayer from Canterbury Cathedral, which comes from the deanery garden, and I feel I know personally not only the dean but his cats, pigs, chickens and turkeys.

    I've had a few conversations recently about what things might look like as lockdown eases here in the UK. Most people agree that we want to continue some of the online things - I'm currently in both a meditation group and a Lent group that I wouldn't be in if it were not for the powers of Zoom and the engagement with it over the past year. Our Place is planning to meet in real terms, as it were, on Easter Sunday I believe - restrictions apply, numbers are limited, etc. I'm assuming it will live-streamed or, at least, recorded and put on YouTube so that everyone can join.
  • Bishops FingerBishops Finger Shipmate
    edited March 15
    Our Place has been live-streaming the Sunday Mass on Facebook all the while we've been able to be open for public worship, and AFAIK this is set to continue. There are some technical issues to resolve as regards the sound quality, but a nearby priest who is something of a whizz-kid in such matters is on the case!

    But...I don't know how many of our online audience (congregation?) watch the whole thing - it's still well over an hour's worth, even though FatherInCharge has recently started to use a short Kyrie confession, the Apostles' Creed (instead of the Nicene), and just two readings (usually the OT and the Gospel).

    /rantage alert/

    Alas, he has also started to have people SAYING hymns - despite the fact that there's usually an organist and a couple of singers to hand. I have told him that I will NOT be attending any services until such time as we can legally sing congregationally. Mumbling the hymns through a facemask sounds terrible, especially online, and in any case most hymns were written to be sung, rather than said. The practice ISTM is bizarre, unsatisfactory, and pointless. Let's simply accept the discipline of abstaining from hymns for the time being, or just use the organist and singer to provide some musical relief.

    Yet more verbiage gets added to a service which is already far too long and wordy.

    IOW, Father, I'm sorry, but you talk too much...

    /end of rantage/
  • At the risk of earning a scolding for waking a thread that had been sleeping soundly, we've been told by our minister that full services are no longer required on line. He has learned that hymns/songs are not wanted by the on line audience, and only minimal prayer and a sermon will suffice. People do not have time for any more.

    This is nonsense. People have just as much time for a full-length service as they ever had - in fact, they probably have more time, as they don't have to travel anywhere.

    There may be a constituency that doesn't want hymns, though. I'm probably in that group myself. I like congregational singing, but I feel like a right 'nana singing at my computer by myself. We have music - our organist records himself playing hymns, and people can sing along to them - but I'd say that less than half the congregation actually sings along.

    We're not back in church yet, but I'm sure that when we do restart physical services, we'll keep a zoom service going for quite some time - people's comfort level with coming back to church is going to vary quite a lot. We don't want to fragment the community by having too many options, though, so there's going to be some balancing to do.
  • One very good reason for not including our hymns online is that we are absolutely rotten singers. You have no idea.
  • Our church has online hymns. The choir does one hymn digitally, and the other hymns are sung off-camera by a very talented singer. So you can still enjoy the music and sing along if you wish or not. The other change is morning prayer 3 Sundays a month and communion only once a month. This is just like back in the day for me. You can pick up communion to go before the service on Sunday or simply say a prayer of receiving it in your heart as you can not meet together. All and all I am very happy with the service.
  • Cathscats wrote: »
    That is so weird. I am preparing to go back to in person services but will be maintaining the online partly because we will have strict numerical limits for each building, but also because we will be able to include the music and people really want the music. They don’t really want to hear me go on and on.

    I wish I had the nerve to quote you to our minister.
  • One very good reason for not including our hymns online is that we are absolutely rotten singers. You have no idea.

    I've heard elderly choristers whose voices have cracked and are also going deaf. At times you just have to smile and say "make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all you people".

    Our music is me singing either a cappella or to accompaniement generated in musescore. Occasionally I sing in harmony with myself (so glad that learning Audacity was part of my A-Level Physics 20 years ago).
  • PriscillaPriscilla Shipmate
    We have hymns from worship recordings, so we might have a professional worship group for a chorus and a cathedral choir for a hymn.
  • Backing up to my earlier note about the minister wanting an online service stripped down to the sermon only, he is unhappy that the poor tech allowed last Sunday's service to go out with the weekly announcements and benediction at each end. Announcements show that the church is alive in its community, and surely the benediction shows that we care for those who joined us. That really just leaves a devotional podcast - I don't think it's a church service.
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