The state of our online gatherings
As you might have guessed, it's been a bit of patchwork in transitioning how we do Sundays right now at CoaH Brookline. You may have noticed that we've gone to a hybrid Zoom/FB model, and that week to week things have been very different.
In the midst of all that's going on, we thought it would be good to inform people about how and why our gatherings have evolved, and to keep you in the loop on changes and the reasons for them!
COVID CONSIDERATIONS:
Current COVID numbers (and a few close calls!) caused us out of caution to scale back to 100% remote gatherings for a few weeks including no one at the 133. Since then we've been in regular contact with our COVID advisory team (shout out to Sarah, Suny, Jason, and Rebecca!) about the best ways to continue worshipping safely during this current spike.
Until conditions change, people from separate households or COVID "bubbles" serving at the 133 on Sundays will stay in separate rooms as much as possible, and are not to leave those rooms unless absolutely necessary. This is actually why Pastor Bland has begun preaching from home, in order to eliminate the band from having to switch rooms while the sermon is being given, which would create more intermingling in different spaces of the 133 (FYI, it's also easier for preacher to be remote b/c it's technologically impossible for musicians to play together over a remote internet connection).
This also does mean that some of our people cannot be on the control room/band rotation under this arrangement....a bummer for sure as we know that was a great encouragement to many of you. We're hoping to be able to widen that group again once the infection numbers settle down and the number of vaccinations increase.
ZOOM VS FACEBOOK CONSIDERATIONS:
There has been a fair amount of discussion around the best way to do less-than-ideal virtual gatherings online. We originally went with Facebook because it was the best way to have engaging video, high-quality audio, and overall a service that was easier to engage with. It also provided many of us with the opportunity to share our worship gathering on Sunday mornings. Several people have actually started attending our church virtually, and have also had unbelievers pop in on the stream because it's easy to access.
At some point Zoom was suggested as a diff option b/c it IS nice to hit the "gallery" view and actually see other folks you're worshipping with! Folks could also lead movements in worship without pre-recording themselves. And so there was a strong push for this. But after deliberation, we persisted with Facebook for the reasons listed above: A stranger or someone unacquainted with the church would likely have a hard time dialing into a Zoom call, and we wanted to keep that door open. The audio quality would suffer quite a bit, and moderating the call would also be harder. Also, our tech-wizard Shane Pratt was out of town.
However, Shane returned last month (praise the Lord), and Zoom added high-quality audio features that made a quality zoom experience possible. That combined with our recent scale-back confirmed how valuable Zoom was. So what to do? We wanted to allow our Sunday gatherings to have a "together", cozier feel (Zoom) with multiple people participating in the leading the worship gathering while also allowing it to be accessible and easy to engage for non-believers and folks "checking us out" online (Facebook).
(As an aside, some of you wonder why it isn't solo guitar + vocal every week. That's a longer conversation, but let me just say that the "oh this is great" reaction to a stripped down band is not a universal one in our congregation! Just like song preferences are different. Don't worry, there will still be weeks like that I'm sure.)
All that to say, we're going to try to keep these two formats integrated. You can continue to worship via Zoom on Sundays, or tune in via Facebook live. We'd encourage you to use the format that allows you to best be present with the Spirit of God and be aware of the others you're worshipping with.
Let us know if you have any further questions, and blessings to you!
-Pastor Mike