CAPTION: Churches across Devon have been broadcasting live and recorded services online
Churches adapt with “remarkable speed” to online services
A survey by the Diocese of Exeter has found that the speed with which churches in Devon have adapted to their buildings being closed by offering worship online and on the phone has been “nothing short of remarkable”.
The Worship In Lockdown survey was carried out five weeks after the coronvirus restrictions were implemented and had 199 respondents.
It asked what technology churches were using to broadcast services, hold meetings and communicate with members and people in their wider communities.
It found that the most popular form of Sunday service is a pre-recorded video service with 87 respondents saying they were broadcasting via the church website or social media like Facebook and Youtube.
“Our oldest Zoom worshipper is 100”
Some services and small groups have been taking place over Zoom
58 respondents said their church was doing a live-streamed service, with 32 doing a live service by phone.
16 churches are running services on the video conferencing facility Zoom, while 88 respondents said they were using it for meetings and small groups.
Mission Communities are also using blogs, e-mail reflections, posts on Facebook, physical banners, links to worship songs on YouTube, various services and activities for families and promoting live and recorded services from other churches and the Diocese of Exeter.
Jon Marlow, the Mission Community Development Team Leader for the Diocese of Exeter, who carried out the research, said “The speed at which churches have moved to offering worship, discipleship and pastoral care while maintaining physical distance is nothing short of remarkable.
“Complexity theory offers the maxim that ‘change happens on the edge of chaos’ and as we have moved from a long period of stability to the current situation, rapid change has not only been possible but necessary for survival.”
The survey found that most churches were doing more than one new thing. Many of the respondents said they had found that they needed to use different ways to connect with different types of people and different platforms achieved different outcomes.
A spirit of creativity and innovation
There is a divide in the ability of some people to access church services and meetings online which is drawn broadly down rural and urban lines (in the case of broadband speed) and on age, though there are exceptions. One church reported “Our oldest Zoom worshipper is 100.”
Andrew Beane, the Archdeacon of Exeter, said: “It has been incredible to see how clergy and parishes have adapted so quickly to the new normal that the Coronavirus crisis has created.
“The moment when we were required to shut our church buildings a spirit of creativity and innovation flowed through our church communities as vicars and others started live-streaming services from their studies, kitchen and gardens.
“It been nothing short of incredible how technology has enabled worship to continue, flourish and reach-out as we serve the people of Devon with joy in this difficult times.”
It’s not just contemporary services which are taking place online, Exeter Cathedral is broadcasting Evening Prayer (compline) on weekdays
Churches so far seem to have been good at meeting the needs of those who are not online, many of whom may need to continue to self-isolate even once church buildings are open again.
Variety of styles
The survey also found that church worship online covers a variety of styles, traditional as well as contemporary.
A lot of people said that their services online were reaching a larger number of people then attended their usual physical services and that they were gaining regular viewers from across the world.
42 people said that their services were reaching over 100 people per week, with many times that number coming back to view material after it had been broadcast.
Jon said it was also “heartening” to see that people who had previously been excluded from worship because they could not travel to church or were not comfortable coming into a church building “were now able to join in”.
Families are among those watching online services
However, he said there were still barriers to worship “Visitors need to find the right links and, in some cases, be given passwords to join in.
“Just as some are unable to attend physical church because of physical factors, many are unable to access online church due to a lack of equipment, training or connectivity.”
The Diocese of Exeter has set up a new working group, led by the Archdeacon of Exeter, to look at how churches can keep using technology to connect with people when the lockdown eases.
It is also offering training in technology and production techniques to make online services as engaging as possible going forward.
Jon said “As we move back out of ‘chaos’ and into ‘stability’ the most creative long-term change will happen on the border between those two states.
“We can’t leave it too long to embed changes, but there needs to be a path back to stability before people are able to buy-in to a longer term vision.”
You can find out more about online church services in the Diocese of Exeter here.
