I remember the first week of COVID worship: I was on family leave, but from my perch on the couch with a sleeping baby, I helped Amy, the rector at Grace Church, adjust her iPhone angle for an improvised livestream that we thought would be for a week or two at most. Perhaps it was better that we didn’t know then all that we would learn about livestreaming over the last two years!
Two years in, my best hunch about the future is that hybrid worship is with us for the long term, and it’s my belief that “hybrid life” will be life-giving and exciting for our congregation in many ways. We are likely to experience more surges in COVID cases in months and years to come; high quality hybrid worship makes it possible for people especially vulnerable to COVID to participate from home whenever it makes most sense to them. Hybrid technology also makes worship and church life more accessible to those for whom regular in-person worship or participation in church leadership is difficult for a variety of reasons (work and family schedules, transportation difficulties, frequent travel). I suspect it would make staying connected to this special community more possible for those who live here for a few years and move away!
I also think that St. Clare’s culture of valuing participation, engagement, and inclusion also make it a good candidate to be a leader in hybrid worship and community life. Cultivating truly hybrid worship and meetings are harder, in many ways, than just sending out a livestream of what is happening in person, or insisting on in person attendance. However, I think that we are well suited to developing ways to participate together online and in person, and that doing so will make us more creative, resilient, and equipped for the future.
John Goodell and I have been working on ways to improve the livestream since I got here, making small improvements as we can. It’s become clear that, luckily, I think we already have a great partner in this work, and that collaborating with TBE is the easiest way to improve our livestream! TBE shares our participatory culture, and they’ve cultivated really interesting ways of doing hybrid worship and community life. I’m really excited about the potential to learn with them and collaborate in the future. We experienced using the technology they’ve added to the sanctuary for the first time last week, and I’m grateful for their support in helping us to jump on board and experiment with it.
Hybrid worship is something relatively new in the long history of worship! We’ll learn about this new technology by trying things out, reflecting on them together, and trying again. Nothing is set in stone; we will learn and discern together.
So here’s where the whole “St. Clare’s participation” thing comes in! Here’s the invitation to each of you:
- Engage our new hybrid technology with an open mind and heart! We will need to experiment with things in the coming weeks, which might require some flexibility and adaptability on all our parts.
- Reflect on what you notice. Whether you worship online or at home, take this short, 3-question survey about your experience. (You can take it as often as you want: each week, or whenever you have something to note!). You can reflect on small things (the music wasn’t as loud as the preaching) or big things (here’s how I felt about the community at home when I looked at the screen, here’s how it felt in my body to sing along at home this week, etc.). You’re also welcome to just talk with me or John or a member of the worship committee or vestry if you prefer to pass on feedback that way.
- I’ll go first with my reflections: It was incredibly meaningful to me to know that I was able to connect effectively with people at home, without having to change my voice. I felt a little anxious knowing how much John was trying to manage as we experimented. I felt grateful when I glanced over and saw the faces of people at home speaking and singing along.
With care,
Anne