YouTube Version Added
Watch March 29 service on Copper Hill Church YouTube Channel
Our experiment with Virtual Service during the COVID-19 situation continues. It is certainly a work in progress and each week our team strives to make improvements. One improvement engineered by Cory Schantz this week is to add an additional venue over which people can watch our service. Some were having trouble watching the Zoom based recordings due to the need for JAVA software. As a solution we are also putting the recording on YouTube where we believe people will be able to watch without that restriction. So the link above is for this weeks’ recording on the brand new Copper Hill Church YouTube Channel! Cory has also put up last week’s service and one of our previous week’s services held at church before Virtual Services began. The Copper Hill Church YouTube Channel is an important development as it could prove useful in many other ways in the future besides as a venue for posting Virtual Service.
Virtual Handshake
Our team had a conference call on Zoom this past week and discussed ways to improve. One idea that gained immediate acceptance was to have a “Virtual Handshake” at the end of the service. Since it would be confusing to have listeners talking during the service, the host mutes everyone except those speaking as we run the service. But this also prevents desirable interaction. So we decided that at the end of the service, after the benediction, the host would un-mute everyone and let people greet the pastor and talk to one another as they might do after church. This week was the first for the Virtual Handshake and it went well. It was great to hear each other’s voices. Those conversations are not included in the recorded version in the link above but they can be heard in the live Facebook streaming version.
Virtual Service to continue
Bishop Bickerton, in keeping with the guidance of Governors Cuomo of New York and Lamont of Connecticut has officially announced that all United Methodist churches are to continue to refrain from all public services and meetings through Easter Sunday. While this is certainly disappointing tidings, I don’t think any of us who have been watching the news are surprised. This means our Copper Hill Virtual Church Services will continue. The Zoom number for the service remains the same each week as it is termed a “recurring meeting.” So you can send it to friends and invite them to join on Zoom if they wish; or you can invite them to watch the live Facebook streaming. Please pray for your leadership as we seek to help the church observe Holy Week (Palm Sunday through Easter) using the online medium.