国产无码

Fellowship

Fellowship is the glue that holds most congregations together. It is more significant than the quality of the sermons or the singing. The church really is the people!

Inclusion

Lockdown has shown us that we have a two-tier church: those members who can attend church on Sunday and participate in activities during the week, and those who can no longer do so because of ill health or infirmity.

We鈥檝e also discovered how to use meeting online to include and involve housebound people in worship and leadership. We ought to have been doing it for years with the available technology: after the pandemic, there is no excuse not to do so!

Connection and conversation

The internet is a place to make and maintain relationships. Lockdown has stimulated people to take online courses, join in quizzes, connect regularly with family and friends, join Zoom services with worshippers from other countries 鈥� they鈥檝e experienced the richness and joy of connecting with people from different parts of the UK and beyond!

For more thoughts on these and other considerations as lockdown eases, check out the 国产无码鈥檚 鈥楨merging into the 鈥渘ew normal鈥濃�� and 鈥楴ew reality, same Mission鈥� resources.

Building a community online:聽What鈥檚 at stake?

Quite simply, massively increased inclusion and participation! A piece of research being undertaken by the Yorkshire Synod shows that the option to join services, meetings and other events can increase potential participation by more than 80%. People report that shifting church online during the pandemic has led, in many cases, to:

• Increased numbers at services, Bible studies, prayer meetings, youth groups, clubs, community outreach events etc.
• Increased regular attendance
• Increased levels of personal contact and pastoral care
• Increased sense of belonging and membership

Preparation

Developing communities of fellowship, inclusion and connection will require significant investment, which may in itself demand a change in our financial decision-making. We need to make these decisions for the benefit of the people who are able to attend virtually, rather than physically.

1. Robust wifi

Investment in robust public wifi is a budgetary priority. Go for the fastest your budget will allow. Expect to pay at least 拢25 pm/拢300 pa. Use the 国产无码 guide, Setting up public wi-fi for your church as a checklist. Look at wifi provision in terms of enabling housebound members and visitors to be present, rather than as a service to those attending. Look at the weekly events you run in addition to the Sunday service and post-service coffee, and ensure that virtual attendance is possible.

2. Equipment

Conduct an assessment to identify what equipment is needed for people to join virtually. Typically, this will include on-site equipment such as a digital projector, screen, laptop, microphones, and sound system. Make sure you identify off-site equipment needed (eg the provision of tablets for use by members who do not have their own). Amazon claims its Fire tablet series (starting at 拢50 per unit) is the cheapest way to get on Zoom. Make sure that you test out any tablet you propose to provide on a cross section of your target group.

3. Licences

Zoom can be used for free, or licences can be purchased at a range of prices, depending on what you need. Read the 国产无码鈥檚聽Guide to setting up a Zoom account聽to help you decide. In keeping with copyright requirements, along with a standard Christian Copyright Licencing International (CCLI) licence, you will need to purchase a CCLI Streaming licence and a PRS for Music Limited Online Music Licence (LOML) in addition.

Download Getting to grips with copyright (PDF | 1mb)

Zoom: platform of choice

Zoom has emerged as the clear platform of choice for virtual attendance across the full range of online gatherings: church services, coffee mornings, Bible studies, prayer meetings, committee meetings, youth and community groups etc. It has changed the face of livestreaming. The 国产无码 has produced several guides on how to use Zoom. Key features include:

• Ease of use for new users
• A fully-featured free account (with a 40 min meeting time limit), contributing to its wide use and user familiarity
• Breakout rooms for small discussion groups
• Gallery view to see everyone attending virtually
• Interactive features: chat, reactions, interactive whiteboard, polling

Using the medium effectively is key to the attendees鈥� experience. It is vital that the host is not only familiar with the features of the platform, but knows how to deploy them to create effective online meetings that are structured and suited to the digital environment.

The Yorkshire Synod is offering training in using Zoom for online preaching, online worship, and conducting meeting. Contact聽[email protected]聽for further information.

Facebook and WhatsApp: social media

Social media is where people go to connect, discuss and share their lives online. You need to be there! It鈥檚 likely that several members are very familiar with social media, and keen to help develop a social media presence. A rule of thumb: go where people are meeting and talking already to connect. Don鈥檛 try and persuade them to come to your online territory to talk.

• How to use WhatsApp for your church

Facebook is the platform of choice for 国产无码 members to meet and talk. Set up a Facebook group for the church as your prime location for interacting with people beyond your congregation and visitors and building a community. Use the page to advertise events, report on them and start discussions about all the things that matter. If you want to make a single foray into the world of social media, make it Facebook.

WhatsApp is the most popular smartphone messaging app on the market. It is free to use. People use it to message and video-call individuals, small and large groups. Develop its use for communications among your church groups. Video chats are great for pastoral visits online.

• How to use Facebook for your church

Website

For your website to be effective, stop thinking of it in terms of your 鈥渘oticeboard in cyberspace鈥�. Think of it as the front door to your online church, open 24/7. It is your connection particularly to the people who don鈥檛 currently attend your activities virtually.

If you鈥檙e taking your first tentative steps towards establishing a website, there are a host of considerations to bear in mind: platform; hosting; design; ease of use; visitor experience; content; writing style; responsiveness; search engine optimization 鈥� or, how Google finds your website; scalability; and future proofing, to mention just a few!

Don鈥檛 let that put you off. The United Reformed Church offers , an out-of-the-box church website that builds in all these considerations and more for you.

iChurch is the go-to solution for churches who want to run a site them- selves and want to involve members of the congregation in contributing to and maintaining the site. It鈥檚 a one-stop shop for a fully featured website built on the WordPress platform. It is probably the easiest website software available: 鈥淚f you can use Word, you can use WordPress!鈥�

For a 拢150 set-up fee, you get a domain name, the website installed with dummy content, a hosting package that will cost聽拢120 +VAT annually, and access to tutorials training and support material and personnel. You need no knowledge of coding聽or web design.

Find out more at聽聽or email聽[email protected].

Other solutions:聽there is no shortage of companies and platforms looking to sell you a church website! Some of the more widely used include Church Edit, Wix, Squarespace, Weebly and Church 123. There is no substitute for doing the research to decide which best suits your needs.

However, be aware of cheap offers 鈥� many companies take ownership of all of your content, so they can sell it on; some won鈥檛 transfer content away from their platform, so if you want to move providers, you have to start from scratch; and others place ads that you can鈥檛 control onto your website. Imagine a church website containing ads for gambling websites or worse!

iChurch doesn鈥檛 do any of that because it鈥檚 maintained by the 国产无码. Email聽[email protected]聽for details.

Resources

An exhaustive list of the resources available for online worship, Bible studies, etc. is outside the scope of this booklet. Start with the聽国产无码鈥檚 own list聽and check out what is available and possible. Once you then start searching, you鈥檒l quickly find an inexhaustible supply. Be generous, and share what you find useful!

Download this guidance

• Doing digital differently聽 (PDF | 925kb)