Marlene's funeral
Wednesday was a sad day at St. John's. Originally scheduled to be a full funeral service celebrating Marlene's life and service at St. John's was downsized to family members only, followed by the committal service at the cemetery. The family gathered in the sanctuary for the service, and Chris played the organ, hymns that Marlene had chosen. The service was more of a family prayer service rather than a full funeral liturgy. My message focused on the theme "Marlene Was There." And indeed she was - for Christmas, Easter, weddings, funerals, for over 60 years. And then we proclaimed, as we always do at funerals, the hope that we have in Christ for resurrection. The family would like to do a public memorial service for Marlene when it will be safe to do so.
Email to Congregation regarding worship
I sent an email to the congregation on Thursday informing them of the decision made by Council on Tuesday regarding worship for March 21-22 and 28-29. I did an analysis of the contact info, and made a list of active members who do not have email addresses. Surprisingly, there were only 18 households on the list. I divided up the list into three groups, and asked Ann, Cathy and Pat to call those people, which they did. Some of their calls revealed numbers that have been disconnected. Thanks for helping get the word out!
Plans for streaming live worship
I have spent a fair amount of time researching the various options for providing an online worship service for St. John's. The options include Facebook (not everyone has facebook), Zoom (100 person limit, but you have to download and install Zoom software on your computer) and YouTube. I decided to go with YouTube, because all members will need to do is click on a link sent them in an email. I have set up a St. John's "Channel" on YouTube that we will use to stream to.
I had to download and install streaming software on my computer, but it was free, so that's good. I purchased an external microphone at Best Buy, because I want the sound to be the best possible. I have found videos on YouTube that explain in detail the steps you need to take to get the signal from your source, through your computer, and uploaded to the web.
My plans for our live service include a PowerPoint display with the words to the service and hymns that are normally in the bulletin and hymnbooks. Another issue that had to be addressed is copyright licensing. One of the church music licensing companies offered a four week free license for both reproducing and streaming, which I ordered. By that time (hopefully) we'll have more of an idea how long our excile will last, and whether we should spend the $260/yr it would cost for this service.
Another challenge of doing online worship with PowerPoint is transferring the service content (what's usually printed in the bulletin) into the large number of "slides" that are a part of the presentation. This is a very time consuming process.
The plan for this weekend is to both services live. Saturday will be out dress rehearsal. Cindy will be there to play the hymns, and Heather will be there to help with technical issues and be the "congregation." Marc and Shaun will be sure to be online at home and logged in to asses and troubleshoot the operation.
Once I determine what the URL (web address) for our livestream is, I will email that link to the congregation using Mailchimp, with an invitation to join us for online worship. Pray that everything works perfectly.
Diane Carter letter
I received a letter from Pr. Diane Carter this week, who shared a summary letter reporting on a meeting of community leaders as they discuss issues related to Covid-19. I encourage you to read the summary here.
IMN Virtual Support Group D
For about a year I've been a part of an online support group of interim pastors from around the US, including one from Germany, sponsored the the Interim Ministry Network. There were six present in our group today, and one is voluntarily self-isolating because she was exposed to Covid-19. We use Zoom for our meeting, which is a very easy to use platform for group meetings on the internet. Perhaps we could use this for some of our meetings, as well. I'm considering using it for some meetings with the confirmation youth. Marcy uses Zoom to do virtual classroom with her 5th graders twice a week during the exile period from the school buildings.
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