'An opportunity to grow'
Many parishes have turned to online worship during this run of lockdowns, gaining new skills and confidence, and even new audiences, in the process.
Our benefice of Charminster, Stinsford and the Chalk Stream Villages down in Dorset is no different.
Curate Leila Mather explains:
"As 6 rural churches with strong links to our local school and truly all-age congregations, we felt that pre-recording Sunday morning services and Open the Book, as well as offering Google Meet Collective Worship and Zoom midweek and evening services, would enable our broad range of parishioners to engage with God and with their church families online, and to know that they are still the body of Christ, just in a slightly different form.
"Whilst there have been struggles with pre-recording (like preaching to a camera in an empty church, not being able to involve our usual laity and associate clergy, and having to resist creating a montage of our many comical out-takes), there have also been great joys: our parishioners have been able to tour each others’ churches virtually, finding out why we as a ministry team love to worship with them each Sunday and what we enjoy most about each church building or community.
"Those who might have been unable to join us in the mornings have been able to attend church 'on-demand' or on Zoom; we as clergy have learned new skills and conquered new challenges in the world of video editing; and whilst we’re sometimes exhausted from over-doing screen time, we’ve enjoyed having this new opportunity to grow in our ministry."
Scroll down for 23 examples from the team.
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