Cartoon: Church Times, 17 April 2020

Being Church now is really hard. It's month five and we are all weary from the constant adaptation. Whatever we have decided to do - daily emails, Zoom worship or live-streaming from the sanctuary - we are all ready for this to be "over." But even when the pandemic is under control, and the right vaccine has been made available, the ways in which we have reached out to one another will have changed us. We will not go back to "normal." We will move forward into a future that is decidedly digital. We will be ministering in a new faith community that lives and prays beyond the borders of our building.Some churches are finding that the movement online - while forced by the circumstances of COVID-19 - has brought new friends into the virtual narthex. As we all consider the post-pandemic Church, most agree we won't be pulling the plug on online ministry any time soon.

The transition to online worship has been easier for some congregations than for others. There is no magic formula, but I am seeing that the most "successful" transitions happen when leadership is determined to make the leap. Another factor is having someone in the congregation who gets it and can assist the clergy - a digital minister. When these two factors coincide, great worship content can reach to the stars.

If the congregation doesn't have a digital "ringer" in the assembly, then the entire streaming/Zooming enterprise has landed on the priest. While some of us have good digital skills, some started ex nihilo. I have had a rush of admiration especially for these non-natives who pushed through the jargon and the platform specs and made it work. You know who you are! And, for those of you who think I know how to do all this stuff, well, let me tell you about the Sunday I screen-shared Rich Simpson's sermon video, and a whole lot of nothing came out of his mouth. That was early days before I learned to "enable computer sound." We are all learning and stretching ourselves beyond anything we learned in seminary. There was no "Zoom Church 101."

So, at the five month mark, I think it's good to be mindful of how much we - lay and ordained leaders - have achieved. It's also a good time to thank my colleague, Ellen Lincourt, for her willingness to give her free time to assisting our congregations with equipment choices, problem-solving and best practices. Ellen knows this territory as a professional in media technology, and we have been blessed by her ministry.

So, here comes the good news. "Tech Time" will resume in August and continue through the end of the year. When I spoke with Ellen recently she shared her impression of this digital shift.

"COVID has unleashed a wild amount of creativity, a wild amount of people reinventing the wheel."

Her new goal is documentation. Whatever it is we are doing must be documented so that if our digital minister is not available, the ministry can continue. That means more than platform passwords. It means a step-by-step procedure for new digital ministers to follow. I have emphasized this important piece with parish websites and social media. Ellen is making the same point with our Sunday online presence. She is interested in cultivating a community of digital ministers and I join her in the hope that "Tech Time" become more than a place for Q & A. It can be a place where digital minister connect, share best practices and lessons learned, laugh about Sunday bloopers and reflect on this technical ministry as evangelism.

While digital ministry in these days generally means Facebook Live or YouTube, I want to remind us all that the medium of our communication is less important than the message. Some congregations have chosen to worship online with Washington National Cathedral, or Trinity Wall Street. Some congregations are collaborating and allowing this crisis to become a bridge between them. Others are focusing on other mediums that allow for daily contact. Sermons are being recorded and shared. Coffee Hour is happening in little Zoom boxes and the nurturing of loving relationships continues with good, old-fashioned phone calls. What matters most now - in this extraordinary moment - is the quality of our love for one another and for our neighbors. What matters is the message that God loves us all and abides with us. While the 21st century Church is clearly becoming a hybrid space of in-person and online worship, the mission has always been about the way of love. If we are communicating that, we are being Church now.

Vicki