Technology - blessing or trial

Our YouTube studio

So how do you like the St Andrew's
Whitchurch YouTube studio?
Ok. Its our dining room with: our dining table, lights, microphone, webcam, computer and green-screen.
​The latter is behind the view point of the picture-taker. It enables us to do the backgrounds of the Lady Chapel and so on.
This new technology has enabled us to hold morning prayer each day, hold staff meetings and other meetings. It has enabled us to live-stream Thursday Holy Communion on YouTube. And also Sunday morning worship.
So, is this technology a blessing or is it a trial?

Blessing

• More of us attend morning prayer.
• Thursday Communion
  attendance is up. We even have someone from the USA connecting in. (10 today)
• Sunday attendance is up. Last Sunday we had 26.
• We are all pulling together and supporting each other.

 

Trial

• Putting these services online is always a white-knuckle ride.
  E.g. This morning a simple software update left us with no microphone. Fixed in about five minutes. But high stress!
• The learning curve for all of us has been extraordinary.
• It has not been cheap!
• We never feel in complete control. We are at the mercy of: the broadband link; hardware; software; human error; etc; etc.

There we have the pros and cons.
The advantages are obvious. It feels as if this lockdown and the crisis have actually prompted a spurt of growth for our church. I am delighted at how people are pulling together. Particularly how so many of us are eager to do our bit and care for each other.
As for the disadvantages. Is it really a trial or is it a learning experience. We will surely keep on using some of these new skills that we are learning. After lockdown ends, we may decide to keep streaming some services.
But even more important is the spiritual lessons we are learning. Ok I am learning. Just before going live this morning I received a prophetic word from one of our team saying:

Prayers for you this morning as you lead God's people, may you rest in his strength.

What an amazing word "in season".  
When I realised the sound was not working and quickly discovered that the updated software was misbehaving ... it would have been easy to panic. But by God's grace, I was able to keep calm and work through it. We were able to get things working in about five minutes. So we got online and celebrated Holy Communion. And God added the Icing. We then had ten people join in.
God is good!

Let's all keep on counting our blessings and placing our trust in the Lord. He is able. And in his strength, so are we.

Stay Safe
With every blessing