Church life during lockdown

During mid-March we started to discuss streaming the service and did, for Mothering Sunday, record the sermon. However, we are a congregational church, participative and community based, and did not feel this broadcast approach fitted into this.

And so, from then on, we decided to offer all our services on Zoom, with a virtual sidesman as co-host able to regulate muting and unmuting and, in the event of issues, with the ability to eject disrupters.

This choice has proved popular and we have some evidence of this in a recent survey. Congregations for the main (and only) Sunday service have varied from 50-88, pretty similar to our normal congregations. A Sunday school and pram service are also offered, daily prayers and a weekly mediation service, with various other social groups using the church Zoom account.

Tools for encouraging giving

We have for some while used cafonline.org for receiving online donations. In the past, it was an option, rarely used, but particularly useful now because it offers us the ability to receive gift-aided one-off donations, but also – importantly – for givers to set up a regular gift, using direct debit.

“…we have gained six new direct debit regular givers as well as received significant numbers of one-off donations.”

The liturgy is sent out on the Saturday in the email parish newsletter, now by necessity weekly since the church is a virtual church. The newsletter contains two items encouraging giving, and linking to the church’s donation page. The liturgy also contains a giving message at the end, with the URL and QR code to that page. We have not worked out how to reach a few key elderly members of the congregation without the necessary technology.

During Holy Week, we published a video on YouTube and Facebook, using the script published on Parish Resources but using just four images for our church in a PowerPoint presentation for the video. The Zoom format of the services means that the vicar can and does support the need for giving, using a version of the script during the service.

Our parish is badly hit from the loss of cash and contactless donations during services, and a near-total loss of rents from the Contact Centre, our church hall. It is too early to establish whether we are replacing all these losses through online giving, but we have gained six new direct debit regular givers as well as received significant numbers of one-off donations.