SOCIAL distancing and self-isolation have been a challenge for everyone.
Not being able to see friends and family has taken its toll, especially on the older members of our community, many of whom live alone. The church is no exception, says John Firth of the GoodNews Church in Melksham.
“It’s been wonderful to see how many churches have adapted to find new ways of communicating to their congregations and beyond,” said John. “Figures show an amazing number of people tuning in to on-line church services.
“At GoodNews we wanted to keep the familiar feel of church, whilst also venturing into new territory. We chose to use the Zoom platform because we are a very participative bunch.
“We’ve found that people appreciate the ‘coffee’ time for catching up with friends before and after the meeting, though it’s not been possible to have communal singing because of feedback, so we found recordings of the music from our own meetings pre-lockdown and we’ve soon settled into a very uplifting time.
“We share communion together from our own homes, and the children break out for ‘Children’s Church’ during the morning message. We’ve had a visiting speaker from Manchester join via Zoom and welcomed a few old friends who’ve moved away from Melksham.
“A recent home meeting had participants from Scotland, Cyprus and Cornwall. Everyone was so excited to reconnect, and it certainly made the conversations about the weather a bit more interesting.
“Not all our congregation are up to date with technology, some had no internet, smart mobile phone or tablet. They were still able to join our Zoom meetings via their landlines and enjoyed hearing others and being able to participate, even though they could not see anyone.
“However, connecting by phone proved complicated as they needed to reconnect during a meeting to avoid call surcharges, it was hard to hold a phone for extended periods of time, and the host was unable to ‘see’ when they wanted to speak, as well as the background noise from using speaker phone causing disturbance to the meeting.
“As the lockdown continued, we decided to purchase tablets and mobile WiFi devices and offer them to those without technology – with some technical help. It took some persuasion, but one by one people are successfully joining our meetings with video and are very glad that they have. The devices will be repurposed by the church after the lockdown unless people decide they’d like to buy them
“The first lady to be invited to be part of the scheme was very worried and said things like; ‘I mess up anything technological’, but she has now become much more confident. She was thrilled to being able to take part in the meetings, share in prayer and study, and fellowship with others, especially in the small breakout rooms at the end of the meeting. The result is that this lady has persuaded others to try.
“GoodNews now has home meetings, youth meetings and prayer meetings on-line. We have discovered that an hour of Zoom uses about 0.5 gigabytes of WiFi, so we estimate that a 6 gigabyte allowance per month should be sufficient. We can also now imagine using Zoom after we resume meeting at the Town Hall, so that those who are unable to attend physically can participate in meetings in a way that we could have hardly imagined two months ago.
“Myles Pilling, an accessibility expert, who works with the disabled, the special needs community and anyone else who needs help with using technology, was chiefly responsible for helping those who have come on board. Myles is also producing a weekly broadcast on Facebook called TechSavvy which is helping people gain confidence in using new technology. Catch up HERE .
“Myles and his wife, Cath, lead the SHINE meetings for the special needs community and have been able to keep in contact with them as well as providing resource activities, video links and newsletters.
“This week Myles managed to help one lady to Skype her husband, who suffers from dementia and is in a care home. She had not been able to see or speak to him for eight weeks because using the phone is difficult for him. The care home has a tablet for relatives to use so that they can connect with their loved ones. After their Skype visit, she commented: ‘It means so much to me just to see his face.’
“This time has been a very steep learning curve for all of us, but the church is a family, and it is important that we do everything we can to make sure that everyone feels as included as possible.”
