Online Church: Paying Attention

For so many people, this pandemic has separated them from a form of comfort that was always available, always just down the street and always complete with friends, family, favorite hymns, songs, and favorite preachers.

Routines have been completely disrupted.  The traditions of Sunday church attendance followed by brunch, afternoon picnics, BBQ’s or playing in parks no longer exist.

We are at home with family or possibly even alone.  We are detached from our normal assemblage. We find ourselves in places full of distraction watching a screen.  We observe while desperately hoping for a successful engagement of worship.

The spiritual community has embraced this situation with solutions of many types:

• Services are now real-time streaming with chat options for input and discussions between those who teach and those who attend.  
• Downloads are available for creative learning and group meetings. 
• Musicians sing with or without accompaniment each from their separate locations.  This must be incredibly difficult!  
• Videos connect children to their own ministries and are both passive and interactive in nature.  
• Online video conferencing is used for prayer meetings and Q&A sessions.   

If you find yourself uncomfortable with this ‘Video-House-of-God’ method of worship, I have some suggestions.  For a change, I am somewhat qualified as I have spent every morning since the fall of 2014 listening to or watching video sermons. I say this not in any boastful way, nor as a statement that you should do something similar, but only as an introduction to something that works for me and happens to dovetail completely with what others are now experiencing for the very first time.

Short history:

• I started by listening to sermon audio files.  First thing every morning, I’d make coffee, sit in a recliner and open websites, download files and listen.  Suffice to say, I’m delighted with the evolution of video.
• Beginning in complete passiveness, it didn’t take long for this to mature into keeping a spreadsheet used as a tracking device that identified the sermon date, listen-date and a note or two describing a thought about what I had heard.
• Eventually, that Excel sheet advanced into a more detailed look at the emotions, thoughts, and resolutions concerning the message heard.  
• Again, this progressed.  I have begun to ‘index’ concepts (Let’s call this Version 4) so that sorting one column will give me access to certain topics that might need to be re-visited.
• This has become the multi-sheet, tab-named, ledger of “what it means to live in Christ from the viewpoint of a regular, non-theologian guy just trying to make sense of it all.”  (Quoted from the Sandals and a Stick Blog description.)

As somewhat of a veteran, I am now advocating that you consider using your own system for recording thoughts and impressions of the messages heard.  During this time of stay-at-home-worship, find a way to stay engaged, to stay awake for just a little while (Matt:26:40) while searching your heart and soul for a better way to commune with God.

Live-stream events include the entire service. You will not miss the music, announcements or the message but preparation is important.

• Check the church website to see if downloads or service suggestions have been made for the topics to be discussed. 
• Get the kids settled with some materials of their own – especially if they will be watching a separate children’s ministry video. 
• Make coffee ahead of time.
• Turn off all distractions.
• Say a simple prayer asking God to help you hear.  Believe me, I’ve been completely surprised by some of the things I notice – and I never, not ever, fail to notice something!
• Open your heart, then your tracking device and begin.

Saved videos of the event typically include only the message. I routinely prefer the saved message clips simply because;

• I’m not very comfortable singing along with the live event,
• It seems that frequent technical glitches (understandable) crop up during the broadcast. This is quite distracting and causes me to lose concentration. 
• Message-only videos allow me to stop the playback giving me time to make a note when some thought or emotion is triggered, I can rewind for clarity.

As I'm proofing this article, I am finding that I don't really like it.  The post seems a 'little bit preachy' and more 'instructional' than my preferred writing style.  This makes me uncomfortable.  At the same time, I hope that sharing this will help others to re-orient their old normal with a new and effective way of staying awake in the presence of God.