Virtual Worship

Hi, this is Bernie Dake.

Welcome to the Salvation Army's Words of Life. Welcome back to Words of Life. I'm Bernie Dake, and with us again is our producer, Chris Benjamin. Hey, everyone. Chris, I'm glad that you're back.

I'm glad to be back. This week in our series, The Post-COVID Church, the group discusses some of the challenges and victories their church experienced as some of them started streaming virtual worship services for the first time. This was an interesting challenge for us, because working in the music department, we were all having to work from home, and our team was learning how to edit video, which was not something that was previously on our radar.

That was a new thing. And then trying to coordinate or just come alongside with our peers that are all around the southeastern part of the United States just posed so many different challenges. Meanwhile, we're hearing stories of how our core officers and pastors are trying to inspire their congregations to do the most good, if you will. And we heard some really great stories. Yeah, I think the thing that I was really glad came out of this conversation. I know churches all over the world felt this way, and it was really easy for people to get caught in the comparison trap and even seeing competition from other churches, because suddenly they see other churches doing an amazing job having online services that were probably doing this well before COVID. And so they had already built up skill sets and employees to be able to create this type of experience. And then we come into COVID, and now pastors that that may not be their gift are now feeling responsible that they're supposed to measure up to this. And I think it was really neat.

Liz actually mentioned she was like, that ain't my thing. So we didn't do that. We did church differently. And I think that's a really valuable lesson is to just know God's gifted you in very specific ways.

You don't need to compare yourself to someone who has that gift. Exactly. I'm very proud as someone who is a member of the Salvation Army to hear some of the different things that people did, including the incorporation of an emotional and spiritual care hotline or helpline or hopeline for people that just needed someone to talk to or to pray with.

It wasn't meant to be a resource-type line, but they do have the ability to steer people towards resources in their communities. And that just kind of gave me that proud chest puff. Oh, absolutely. Actually, I had the privilege of being a part of that when it was first launched. And so that was pretty early on into lockdown. So my team, we were all working from home, and all of us signed up to be a part of that. And so it was challenging.

I mean, it definitely took a toll during your scheduled time to be answering the phone. It was amazing to get to be there for people, but it was so hard to hear someone that really just wanted to give a hug after you prayed with them and you just couldn't and you just felt so helpless. But we offered them prayer, and then we have resources that we can point them towards in their community. So I think it's such a powerful thing. So we really encourage you. If you need someone to speak to that's still active, that's still live, you can call 1-844-458-HOPE.

That's 1-844-458-4673. Well, welcome back, everybody. You know, on our last episode, we had just started getting into the exciting part of how God kind of inspired each of these different ministers to get to it in Jesus' name. And there was just one little thing we thought we should touch on related to technology because that was certainly thought to be a piece that could be a game changer for us. Let's get into that. What were some of the challenges related to technology in each of your different churches?

Who had technology wins or lessons learned? So it was scary at first. It was scary because it's a new realm. You know, when it first started, we were sharing other resources, other Salvation Army churches, other worship service. My wife and I said, you know what? We can do this.

We can do this. So we started doing our own, recording our own virtual worship services. And I got to tell you, the Salvation Army has an incredible multimedia database called Ministry Toolkit. If it wasn't for the Ministry Toolkit, I don't know if we would have been able to successfully do what we were doing. There's so many resources that were provided, but it was odd being in our home. We kept trying to switch rooms and get the right different angle, making sure that the kids don't run through. We tried to make it during nap time where we would do the sermon, but then you would hear screaming or trucks running into the wall.

So, yeah, we made it happen. In 2020, analytics. I really got to look into the analytics of it.

You can see when the viewership is there and when it drops out. One week, my sermon, the viewer just went all the way down. That's okay. I didn't take any offense.

But it's just something to say that it got old pretty quickly. And we're still trying to connect with them as much as possible. But it is important to have that worship and to offer a worship experience. But really, at the end of the day, it came down to we were created to worship. We can worship God wherever we are. Now, I'm not trying to say I love a traditional worship service, and I get closer to God every time we have a corporate worship service.

But there are other ways, and we are learning that there are other ways. We've got to find those ways throughout the day to worship our Heavenly Father in any way possible. I think one of the things the salvation army church is learning very quickly is that we don't have to be able to do everything. For example, in our neck of the woods, we've reached out to multiple people to offer a devotion, 10 to 12 minutes serving. And the reason being is because it is a lot of stress every week to be on the digital world. If we're just being vulnerable and transparent, it's easier to spread it out to folks who are equally gifted in communicating the Word of God.

And they also may speak to someone who I can't speak to personally. So, again, I'll just emphasize that this is an extension. This is a time to expand our ministry and not to substitute that corporate worship. And I do agree that we're made to be in proximity, folks, when we have conversations and worship is an opportunity for many of us. But I don't want to limit ourselves. And I think that's the thing that scares me about when the COVID goes away is that, again, we go back to our little cycles on Sunday mornings, and we forget about the world who we're never reaching, right?

And, you know, we're just going to be very transparent. So many of our cores are just shrinking. Our churches, the Southwest Norman churches and the Universal Church at large is shrinking as well. We know that's a trend. But if we're just talking about our church, we're just doing this.

And why is that? I think it's because we've lost out on that essential piece of relationships. That's what the virtual piece for my wife and I, that's given us an opportunity to do. We've had several messages from people who have watched that sermon that was good, and we're like, what?

Oh, you watched it? Well, and so we recognize that there is some value in that. And so I just want to make sure that, as we're talking about this, that I don't believe that it's a substitution.

I believe that's an extension. And it has served a great purpose to this time where many of us have not been able to meet in person. We found that. I mean, again, we're getting notes from people all over the world who say, thank you for this experience of worship. And it's like, you're welcome. Like, where do you live?

Where are you from? And another great part of that, how do we utilize this virtual world to reach our community? And because everyone's looking at a screen right now or listening. And so we've also experienced that we have people who have connected. And then when we do a ministry, let's say an outdoor parking lot service, people are coming who found us through our online services. So I think it goes back to the purpose and intention behind it, not only providing a worship experience for your current church members, making sure that that experience is there for those who still feel comfortable, don't feel comfortable going into a building, who want to worship at home. But at the same time, how are we using that outlet as an outreach for our communities? But it all goes back to intention and purpose.

Yeah. Okay, Nick, did you have something you want to share? I love when I'm here because this extension, it's exciting to me. I think at first thought, when we hear COVID, we're like, okay, let's come back. Let's be safe. Let's be in no contact. And we've heard here the complete opposite.

They're like, extension to our worship. No, no, no, this is not a time to hide. Go out and meet people. Make a difference.

And add programs, add things to have the impact that we need to have in our communities, not retreat. And I love it. It's just exciting to me.

It's awesome. If you are not excited about what's being shared around this table, you may need to turn your volume up just a little bit. There's some great lessons that we're learning from each other and great lessons that we learned through a pandemic. One of the things that has come up is the comparison trap, particularly related to how we were building our services, not virtually. I mean, they were actual services, but online, I think is what we're saying.

Anybody fall into that routine? Were you comparing yourselves or feeling like there was a competition? Absolutely. You know, we're in the Atlanta area and we've got some churches that have a much larger ministry team. They've got a team of AV folks and everything. And I was watching some of the other services and I'm like, oh, wow, isn't that cool?

They're able to put the words up for their songs. I'm just lucky to get it on the screen and to make sure that the people that are watching from home can read what's on the screen on the television behind us. And I started getting stressed about it. Be like, well, I'm not as good as we're not doing as well as.

And then I finally just had to sit down and say, you know what? It's not about being able to perform at a certain level. It's about sharing the love of Jesus. So we're going to do what we can do for our people.

We're going to meet their need where they are. For Chan, that includes having to literally call his senior citizens, walk them through how to get on YouTube so that they can watch his devotional, his Bible study that he's doing. So I can't be a big church. I'm not a megachurch. I can only do what I can do. And so at first I was falling into that trap, but I have to just get with Jesus and say, you know what? It's not about that.

It's about just doing the best for you that I can. Jeremy, you've got some literally rock stars at your church. They were helping. And I think related to what Chris said, some of the resources you were creating were actually benefiting other people because they were able to share and use those as well.

That was also a goal of ours because of the resources we had available to be able to share those. But I also want to touch on what Major Angie said is it doesn't even end there, the comparison trap, because even though we did have some good quality that was out there, you still have some of our church members who are saying, well, why aren't you doing it this way? Or I'm going to watch this church because I don't like what you're doing.

You know what I mean? And it's not that negative, but we hear that too from our church members who are out there. And then again, you get fearful of, oh, am I going to lose this when we do come back? Are we going to lose people because they're now liking another church better than ours?

So I think I think that comparison trap is real through that. But again, it goes back to how can we do the best we can with the resources that we have? And if we're putting that in the Lord's hands, he's going to bless it.

OK, well, I think that's a good place to stop for this episode. We're going to come back next week and talk even more about how we were able to respond in a post-Covid world. The Salvation Army's mission, Doing the Most Good, means helping people with material and spiritual needs. You become a part of this mission every time you give to the Salvation Army. Visit salvationarmyusa.org to offer your support. And we'd love to hear from you. Email us at radio at uss.salvationarmy.org Call 1-800-229-9965 or write us at P.O.

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