It’s hard to believe that we’re already a couple weeks into streaming our services online! We really appreciate your love and support as we adjust to this new ‘normal.’
We’re also very appreciative of all the feedback we’ve been getting. It has helped us think through how we can best serve our body in this season.
The purpose of this post is to help clarify our goals for live streaming in order to give you a picture of what we’re doing and why.
Worship Services
We will continue to stream full worship services for as long as we’re advised to refrain meeting in large groups. Our hope is that your family will join us in song, prayer, and the hearing of God’s Word every Sunday.
A number of you have reached out requesting modifications to aspects of the streaming process. Thank you for your feedback – we do appreciate it.
Please keep in mind that while we are always working to improve, it is unlikely that we’ll be able to accommodate everyone’s preferences.
If you miss something (e.g. a sermon point) during the stream, feel free pause or replay at any point during or after the service. Each YouTube stream is re-playable and can be accessed any time.
The best way to access our worship live stream is through this page on our website. We’ll also try to have the correct stream linked on our Facebook page as well.
If you encounter issues accessing the stream or replaying an old one, don’t hesitate to reach out to either myself (pastor Nick) or Pauline. Our availability may be reduced while a worship service is in progress, however.
Production Quality
We are very thankful for the equipment and software the Lord has given us to stream at our current level of quality. For only $300, we have been able to have an HD video feed, a studio microphone, a versatile streaming platform, and a no-cost software to manage it all!
We are committed to undistracted excellence and are working hard to hold out this value in our online worship services. While there’s certainly more we could do (and buy!) to enhance our production quality, we are opting to keep things simple. Live-streaming is still new for us and we are trying to keep variables to a minimum. Our most significant limitations are (a) know-how, (b) volunteers, and (c) finances (in that order).
In the long-term, we’d love to see an increase in quality as the Lord provides the expertise, volunteers, and equipment to do so. Would you pray with us for these things?
In the mean time, we believe that there’s an advantage to a simple set-up: it maintains the ‘feel’ of Trinity. For better or worse, we’re not a ‘fancy’ church by any stretch. We’ll likely never be able to compete (in terms of production quality) with some of the bigger churches out there, but that’s ok. We’re a simple church, with simple means – and that’s alright.
Community
The most significant downside to all this is the difficulty cultivating community within our body. Streaming is a great, short-term tool for when we cannot gather in-person, but we long for more – because we were made for more!
We’ve been encouraged by how many of you have adopted new habits (and new technology) to fulfill the ‘one anothers’ of Scripture. Here are some of the best tools we’ve seen our body use to stay connected:
- Facebook (private group + public page) – Most of us are on this platform, so this is probably the best way to communicate needs and share encouragement with most of those in our body
- Marco Polo (video messaging mobile app) – A number of our women are using this app to share things that they’re grateful for. I (pastor Nick) have recently discovered this and have enjoyed seeing the people I’m messaging.
- Phone – The good ‘ol fashioned telephone! To those for whom making phone calls is not passé, nothing beats maintaining intergenerational connectedness like a phone call. If you know someone (or are someone) who isn’t on social media, we’d encourage you to give them a call this week!
I hope this post helped provide some clarity about our approach to live streaming as well as some tips for leveraging technology well in this season.
We love you all very much and yearn to be with you again soon.