When lockdown started in March, many churches moved quickly online, finding their way through unfamiliar technology in an attempt to keep contact within their church community. Many churches were surprised to find people among them with skills ready to use, for others it was a journey into the unknown: finding worship and fellowship on Zoom, Facebook watch parties and YouTube. It quickly became obvious though that others were tuning in...
We had stumbled on a way of connecting with people who are normally invisible to us. In September, 150 people who’d tried all sorts of ways of connecting online for worship gathered in a webinar organised by the Methodist Churches’ Learning Network to share their experiences and ask ‘What have we learned, and what can we do next?’
Keeping it short and relevant
Amongst those contributing was Katy Thomas, a Methodist minister responsible for three churches in east Cheshire. She has been working with a team to produce pre-recorded services on YouTube. The original aim was to reach people in their homes and provide a focus for worship each week. Services last 20 minutes, are carefully curated, and make use of creative gifts of the congregations. Katy suggests that keeping everything (including sermons) short, topical and relevant is vital – holding someone’s attention amongst the distractions of home is even more difficult than it is in a church building. What soon became apparent was that they had unwittingly flung open the gates of the church. ‘People were listening with their partners, who never came to church’, Katy explained. ‘They were sharing the link with family members, people who’d moved away, and there was even an international link with a community in Chile.’ The service was even streamed into a hospital ward in response to a request from hospital staff. It remains to be seen how these ideas develop in future, but there will certainly be an online component to the blend of worship. These churches are determined to keep the gates open and to keep their welcome open for all.
