In a time when all of us are being urged to help slow the spread of COVID-19 by practicing physical distancing and avoiding gathering in groups, churches have had to scramble to work out how congregational life, prayer and ministry can be continued. Many churches around the world simply closed down worship services completely, and most that switched to online worship have simply live streamed a video of some people leading worship. It is all one-way, like watching a worship service on TV. For us though, the “everyone participating” nature of our worship is one of its most important features, and so finding a way to maintain that was crucial. To our surprise, we were able to do this more successfully than we expected. It is a bit messier than some of the dazzling high-tech telecasts you can find from some churches, but it is deep and rich and a whole lot more communally connected. If you don’t turn up to our online worship service, your absence will be noticed and felt, just as it would have been when we were gathering physically. In the internet age, physical distancing doesn’t have to be social distancing. It has worked so well for us that we recently decided (unanimously!) that we won’t be planning on returning worship to the church building. We will do other things physically gathered, but our worship liturgies will continue online.
One of the wonderful discoveries of this has been that suddenly it is possible for our geographically scattered congregation to gather on weekdays too to pray what is traditionally known as the “daily office”, gatherings several times a day for short liturgies of praise and prayer followed by a chance to check in on one another.
Click here to for more details and video recordings of the Daily Prayer gatherings.
Click here for details and video recordings of the Holy Week liturgies.
You can connect directly to our Sunday Worship Service from here (5:00-6:30pm Melbourne time. If you have a question, or would like to attend any of our daily morning, evening or nighttime liturgies, please use the contact form below and we’ll be in touch with information on how to connect and get involved. Don’t forget to hit the “Send” button after typing your message.