A Note on Expanding On-line Worship
September 2, 2020
Let me share again my opening story from this week’s sermon: Doug lived all his life in the Florida Keys and is on his deathbed and knows the end is near. His nurse and family are present. With two witnesses present and a camcorder rolling, he shares his last wishes:
“My son Rick, I want to give you the Ocean Reef houses. My daughter Sybil, let me offer you the apartments between mile markers 100 and Tavernier. My son, Jamie, take the offices over in the Marathon Government Center. Sarah, my dear wife, I bequest to you all the residential buildings on the bayside on Blackwater Sound.”
The nurse and witnesses are blown away as they did not realize his extensive holdings, and as Doug slips away, the nurse says, “Mrs. Pender, your husband must have been such a hard-working man to have accumulated all this property.”
“Uggh,” the wife replies, “The goofball was obsessed with his paper route.”
Ha! (I’ll pause a moment for you to catch your breath from laughing so hard.)
Sounds like dear-departed Doug took his paper route very seriously! Even though we Christians may not all have paper routes, all of us share the job of delighting in and delivering to others the Good News of Jesus Christ. We take that calling as seriously as Doug took his!
That’s why the staff is working hard, with the council’s strong affirmation, to take enabling action to stream BOTH traditional and contemporary worship services EACH WEEK.
Here are some details:
- Well over $10,000 worth of cameras and equipment necessary for streaming technology has been purchased for our two worship spaces. (Although we’ve been blessed to use some Worship/Music Reserves to cover these costs, if any of you would like to support this new ministry financially, your monetary partnership would be a special blessing!)
- Special CAT 5 cables have been run in both worship spaces to reduce wifi glitches during streaming.
- Our new staff member, Bill Porter, has led the way in developing a neat volunteer core (Jason & Molly Breckling, Brad Milburn, Eric & Andrew Jakubowski, and the Jacobson family, among others) who help run the cameras, sound, and iPad required to stream each week.
- Our organist for our traditional David Beecher is back from his knee replacement surgery, so now COS is ready to stream a traditional service of the quality folks have come to appreciate.
- Communications Coordinator Shelley Casey has led the charge to expand the choice of platforms people can use to stream (and some of you even cast to your living room big screens) the services. Now COS worship is available on FB Live, our website, Youtube, and Vimeo.
- As if God were sending a special gift, COS is welcoming on board a 280-hour intern, William Friedrichs, who is graduating from Conservatory of Recording Arts and Sciences in Phoenix, Arizona. Will is the grandson of Dolores Daniel’s sister and has already jumped in to help with worship production.
If all goes well, we hope that on Sunday, September 13, we will be streaming BOTH services, the contemporary service at 9.45 AM and the traditional at 11.00 AM.
Please read and pray on this: what is essential each week for a quality and engaging streamed worship – volunteers. Despite shifting staff hours to worship production and our good fortune with Will, the intern, each service requires about 3-5 volunteers. Bill Porter can easily train you and the good news is that it’s not rocket science. But it does require specific Christians willing to step up and give this gift to the community. If you’re willing to play your role, even if it’s once a month, please contact Bill Porter at 828-719-1962 or [email protected]. Lack of volunteers will mean a lack of quality or even a discontinuation of this effort, about which so many have asked and all of us are excited.
So friends, back to my opening joke: we’ve got good news to deliver! “Euangelion” is Greek for “good news.” We’ve named ourselves the EVANGELICAL Lutheran Church in America (the ELCA) to hold ourselves accountable in sharing the good news of Jesus’ death, resurrection and life-transforming love. One central way we do that is worship. We’re delighted that the COS staff/volunteer team is putting together now SIX weekly worship/devotional opportunities for good news: 1. 9.45 Contemporary Streamed Worship. 2. (As of Sept. 13) 11 AM Traditional Streamed Worship. 3. 11 AM In-Person, on Campus Worship (Registration Required). 4. Wednesday 6.30 FB Live Devotions. 5. Goldilocks Gatherings at Palmetto Wednesdays at 7 PM, and 6. Friday Fellowship with contemporary songs with Sandra, Bill, and friends.
So thanks for your help in spreading the word about these good news possibilities. Thanks for participating yourself in at least one each week; as we say, it’s our delight but also our duty to people of worship. Thanks for your possible financial and volunteer support in making sure we can sustain these gospel efforts, to which we’ve been amazingly called by Jesus.
Streaming and In-Person and Worshiping with You,
Pastor Fritz