Ode to churches who aren’t great at live-streaming

Today, I live-streamed church from home. Now, I’m no stranger to this. We used to live-stream every single service at the Unity church I was a part of. It was no big deal. 

But the church I go to now is like a lot of smaller, older, liturgical churches. They’re big on the congregation being there in-person. They’re big on people chewing the bread and drinking the wine. They’re big on physicality - the turning of hymnal pages, bowing, smelling incense, dipping of hands in the water and making the sign of the cross, smiling, shaking hands as the peace is passed, hearing babies cry, etc. 

I’m thankful that we were able to gather digitally today. I’m glad that technology enables us to do this. And our church did a very good job of it even though this isn’t normally their thing. Pretty sure it was live-streamed via iPhone with not-so-great sound (’twas good enough, though) and a kinda grainy picture. 

Which brings me to my point…

I hope churches like mine don’t get too good at this. I hope that they can under-deliver just a little bit as this social distancing continues (here in Chicago, EVERYTHING is closed including bars and restaurants starting in a couple of days). 

Just don’t get too good at the remote worshipping thing, church. Don’t let us get too comfortable watching from home. No matter what you do, it just isn’t the same. But thanks for doing what you can to keep us gathered during this time.

Grace & Godspeed,
Jonas