[Magdalen] Streaming Services

[Suzie Buchanan]

As a priest, I found it odd and even a little, to use M’s word, creepy to do any part of the liturgy alone in the church.  Even the one we did where there were two other people in the building.  I didn’t like it and it didn’t do much for me spiritually. 

We suspected my husband had a mild symptom case of COVID-19, so I lived isolated in my home from him and quarantined from the outside world for over 2 weeks. That meant that I couldn’t go to the church to do the solo-(or semisolo) liturgy bit anyway.  Instead I’ve had people record reading from home and email them to me and I’ve stitched all the pieces together into a video that was scheduled for online worship on both Facebook and YouTube.  I came out of that situation (quarantine) on Holy Saturday. Had a conversation with the vestry at our brief weekly zoom check-in this week, and they want us to keep doing it that way. They love hearing all the different voices (including some of our more elderly readers and some of the children), they like the pieces that show me in my home just like they are in theirs, and they like that this allows me to also put most of the words on the screen for them as well. Ease of use. Solidarity of place. 

But I absolutely LOVE the idea of a zoom coffee hour just before. I don’t do the Eucharistic prayer - just the Liturgy of the Word - and schedule ours at 10 so that people can go on to the Washington Cathedral service afterwards if they want the spiritual communion offering. But I’m going to add coffee hour before the service. That’s a great way to “gather” and know yourself to “be” with others from the church for worship. 

Suz

Sent from my iPhone

> On Apr 16, 2020, at 12:43 PM, ME Michaud <michaudme at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> I want to add:
> 
> seeing a priest alone in an empty church is NOT something I find helpful.
> In fact, it's downright creepy.
> Even pornographic.
> -M, a member of the "liturgy is participatory" party