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worship
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2021-10-09
Wear a mask to church in 2020
As everything started to open back up, I had to wear a mask to church. Having to wear a mask to church was not easy when singing along with the worship service. Especially when you attend a service with loved ones for the holidays. -
2020-09-24Christopher: Find the things that gives you peace
Christopher is the administrative aid at the African American Museum of Nassau County. He works with museum director, Joysetta Pearse, to promote understanding and appreciation of African American culture, art and tradition through education, interpretation, exhibitions, collections and programs for the enrichment of the public. Chris discusses his work, as well as how we hopes to come out stronger, on the other side of COVID. He also discusses the loss of his uncle and getting a diagnosis of his own during COVID. -
2020-09-11Jewish Melbourne: Blake St Hebrew Congregation Shabbat Services
Throughout the lockdown, as synagogues have been closed, Blake Street Hebrew Congregation has conducted Shabbat services via zoom, and shared videos on their Facebook page. At times this has involved singing with Moshe Hendel Feiglin for Mincha, which can be seen in this video. -
2020-08-09Worship seems so lonely now.
With this isolation it's hard to feel a connection when your fellow worshipers aren't there with you. The friendly faces aren't there anymore and you're stuck feeling lonely. You can watch a video or listen to the broadcast in your car outside the church but it's lost its familiarity. We miss the people around us and are losing that comfort of others in worship and in song. We may even feel disconnected to our spirituality because of it. But it's something we just have to deal with to keep others safe. Even the Psalmist felt lonely. He described himself as a lonely bird sitting atop the roof of house and waiting for the Lord (Psalm 102:7). Perhaps we all just have to wait. -
April 16, 2020Newburgh IN First Christian Church New Worship Experience
These photographs were taken to document some of what people in Evansville and its Tri-State region saw and experienced as the realities of the Covid-19 pandemic came to the area in the spring of 2020. Many of these images represent literal signs of the time, while others figuratively depict signs of the pandemic. -
May 1, 2020Evansville IN The Cathedral Changing Worship
These photographs were taken to document some of what people in Evansville and its Tri-State region saw and experienced as the realities of the Covid-19 pandemic came to the area in the spring of 2020. Many of these images represent literal signs of the time, while others figuratively depict signs of the pandemic. -
May 1, 2020Evansville IN Aldersgate UMC Changing Worship
These photographs were taken to document some of what people in Evansville and its Tri-State region saw and experienced as the realities of the Covid-19 pandemic came to the area in the spring of 2020. Many of these images represent literal signs of the time, while others figuratively depict signs of the pandemic. -
2020-07-10Religious Worship on Golden Gate Bridge
Shannon Grove, the CA State Senator for the 16th Senate District and the Senate Republican Leader, posted a religious group of over 500 people who gathered to worship on the Golden Gate Bridge. Some of the worshipers wore masks but many did not. One image shows signs that read "Let Us Worship" and "Hold the Line! Worship." -
2020-05-22Can You Gather With God Over Zoom?
This article describes how several Quaker meetings (including the one my family attends), which involve mostly silent, communal contemplation, have altered their practices for social distancing. -
2020-05-24A stronger conversion to faith
Today I curled my hair and wore earrings. A first in many weeks! Sunday worship is a huge part of our family life. We practice our faith daily and gather weekly with The Church of Jesus of Christ of Latter Day Saints. Of course with quarantine, like everyone else, we can not gather. But it hasn’t stopped us from our worship. In our home, we continue to dress weekly for the Sabbath, mostly because my husband and oldest son are able to administer the sacrament for us, which we hold very sacred. After a short intimate family worship service we have an opportunity to hear uplifting words recorded and shared online from members of our local congregations. With days that mesh together, having a defining Sunday is refreshing and keeps my soul uplifted. I grew up in the LDS faith however, I had to come to decide on my own and gain my own testimony in it’s teachings. We honor the Bible and have a deep testimony in Jesus Christ as our Lord, Savior, and Redeemer. We also believe The Book of Mormon to be the word of God and goes hand in hand with our beloved Bible giving added testimony of the glories of Christ. I don’t recall one moment in my life that I can define as my conversion moment, as others may. I do remember moments where I had to question myself and my beliefs and decide who and what I wanted to follow and believe. My conversion has been a lifelong journey and process and everyday I draw closer to God is a day my testimony is strengthened. I have enjoyed this time of intimate worship with my family. As we slowly emerge from our cocoons I have heard others are rejoining their faiths of worship. It will be a little slower here in Belgium before we can return to our church family because of government safety measures. I do look forward to that day when we can meet and embrace again. But this time with my children has been one of the best faith building times in my life. (With a stubborn 6 year old and teenage attitudes one can’t help but question their why😉) And for that, I am completely grateful. The virus hasn’t been all that bad. ❤️ -
2020-04-29Digital Worship
With some churches contesting the Kansas governor's restrictions upon large religious gatherings, thus prompting legal and political battles between the state's executive and legislative branches, many churches continued to spread the Good Word through live online platforms rather than become a COVID cluster like several other houses of worship in other parts of the state. -
2020-05-22Parking Lot Church Service
Photograph of a social distanced church service showing the dedication one congregation has to their faith. -
2020-04-30St. Lucas Evangelical Lutheran Church signboard announcement
This is an image of the signboard in front of the St. Lucas Evangelical Lutheran Church in St. Louis, MO. This announcement is notifying the community that the church holds their services online, and by not gathering for traditional services, they are helping to minimize the spread of COVID-19 while still engaging in their religious lives. #REL101 -
2020-03-13COVID-19 Upends American Religious Life
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2020-04-17Pastoring through a Pandemic
It’s Saturday night, March 21, and my son and I have spent pretty much all day creating an iMovie Sunday morning worship service for my two congregations. Now we can’t figure out how to upload it from Aidan’s school-issued computer onto YouTube. This is the first time I’ve had to do this all online. I call Allysen, a teacher in the school district and a member of one of my churches. She suggests I try putting it on a flash drive. It’s 11:55 p.m. My son’s computer is set to turn off at midnight and won’t open up again until 6 a.m. I frantically run downstairs and search for a flash drive in an attempt to transfer the iMovie of the worship service from his computer to mine. My kitchen drawers are a mess. I can’t find a flash drive. I can never find anything when I need it in my disaster of a house. On Facebook Messenger Allysen says, “Just sleep for now and do it in the morning. Your church goers should be a forgiving lot even if it isn’t ready right at 8:30 a.m.” I can’t go to sleep. In a world where nothing is going right, where everything has changed, where this is the first opportunity to prove that I can adapt and lead and be of help to the congregations I love as we navigate these unchartered waters, I need this to happen. I realize my iPhone has iMovie on it. It’s 12:10 a.m. when I open a new “project” and begin to import all the pieces I originally worked with on Aidan’s computer. The video clips of Mom and Jill singing the hymns; the video of Allysen reading scripture (the video that had taken hours to download via Google drive); the short little clip of the Smorstad family sharing the peace, sweet twin boys—age 9 months—giggling and drooling. God, I miss them all. Aidan had told me it would be too difficult to add the words of the hymns to the screen, but I do it. At 1 a.m. I figure out how to add photos of the hymns as cutaways to the movie. I discover this by mistake. I’m pressing buttons without knowing what I’m doing. I swear it feels like the Spirit has given me the button I need. I forget to give thanks. I’m too busy making a movie that is somehow also a worship service for two congregations that can no longer meet in person. Seminary has not prepared me for this. I have a YouTube channel only because I had used it to share videos of my sister’s senior trombone recital years before. I had never made an iMovie. Now I’ve made one between the hours of midnight and 3 a.m. It’s done and I’m proud of it. I’ve gone from waking up at 7 a.m. on Friday morning with the idea of including multiple parishioners in the making of the movie—to being ready to upload it to YouTube at 3 a.m. on Sunday morning. In the future, I’ll allow more time. But it won’t make it any easier. For each piece that becomes routine and knowable, another piece becomes a challenge. How to convert files that aren’t allowed by iMovie? Google it. Pay $6 for an app that will do the conversion. Problem solved. How to create hymn files when your mom refuses to keep singing for these worship services? Sister to the rescue. She discovers openhymnal.org. I play the midi file of the hymn through old, donated speakers attached to my work computer, place my iPhone at the perfect distance from the speakers (too close and it’s fuzzy; too far away and it’s too soft—this I learned through much trial and error), hit the voice memo record button on my phone and try my best to have some sort of decent breath support as I sing the public domain hymns that I can include without worrying about copyright infringement. It would help if I could breathe. It would help if I could sleep. It would help if I wasn’t trying to do this, basically, all alone. It would help if I could turn over the movie production to some high school student who loves such things and who could do it all easily and maybe even enjoy it. But now I feel like it’s my job. I think I should be spending more time calling my people, but I can’t seem to manage much calling. Each conversation leaves me absolutely spent. I sob after each goodbye. I miss these people. I don’t want to make phone calls or iMovies. I want to give hugs. I want to talk face to face, leaning in to listen well, holding hands as we pray for hope and healing. The night before Easter I can’t sleep. Awake at 2 a.m., I watch the worship service created by my good friend, a volunteer music director in a neighboring town. The service is beautiful. I love my friend. And I miss her. At 3 a.m. I watch another worship service created by another dear friend, a pastor in my corner of Iowa, skipping ahead to get to her sermon. I’ve already read it, as she asked me two days before for input, but now I get to hear it. Receive it. It’s beautiful. Needed. At 4 a.m. I click on YouTube news and lay in bed listening to death counts. It’s Easter morning. At 5 a.m. I get out of bed and go to church. I’m supposed to join an invitation-only zoom gathering by 5:40 a.m. My computer is sluggish and won’t load the meeting. I hate technology. I hate being so damn dependent on it. Christ can rise from the dead but can’t make this computer do what it’s supposed to do. I finally use my iPhone to connect to the meeting. It’s a gathering of women from around the world, an informal worship service of sorts that grew out of a single Tweet. “How to faithfully celebrate Easter this year: Only women on the Zoom call. Call is scheduled before dawn. We speak only of impossible things that would topple the empire.” It turns out to be the most meaningful Easter worship service I’ve ever experienced. As each woman is called by name—just as Jesus called Mary Magdalene by name in the garden outside the empty tomb—we give our testimony. We talk about where we’ve seen the Lord. I think I’m going to say something about the church in which I grew up. How they used the Bible to tell me women couldn’t pastor—I couldn’t preach—but God said yes! But instead, a song I’ve written comes to mind. And my testimony is this: I know that death is real but it will never be the end. I know the song goes on and dancing feet are powerful. I worship later with my family, watching myself lead worship on the television screen in our living room. I smile at my on-screen self. I can’t help it. I want to dance. -
2020-03-18Close the Churches
Churches have had to close worldwide due to the COVID-19 pandemic. For many religions, there is a necessity to get together in groups, worship together, and even celebrate religious events. Due to these restrictions, many are now having their right of practicing religion taken away from them. There are legal actions that have been taken in the past, when considering if churches should listen and follow state or federal claims. -
2020-04-17Trump consults faith leaders on phased-in reopening
President Trump held a call on Friday to discuss with faith leaders the return of in-person worship. During the pandemic, most services have been held online due to COVID-19. After classifying some places of worship as "large venues," some religious leaders would like to return to their normal services. -
2020-03-27Prayers restricted across Central Minnesota mosques amid COVID-19 fears
The article discusses the fears regarding religious gatherings and COVID-19 in central Minnesota. Specifically, the mosques and islamic religious centers of central Minnesota recently called for an end of mass gatherings, prayers, meetings, and weekend classes until it would be considered safe to do so. While many members of the community agree with the decision of local congregation leaders, many have concerns with the virus interrupting the famous islamic tradition and holiday of Ramadan. As Ramadan starts in April and lasts well through May, many people are worried they will not get to pray or worship during this religious holiday. While congregation leaders have not quite extended shut downs that far in advance yet, they said they will not hesitate to act in order to protect the community.