As you remember, last March, things changed for all of us, and as a church, we learned to adjust to the changes. Thank you for adjusting with us as we learned how to develop an online worship service.
On March 15, we launched our first online service. In the beginning, our services consisted of a few people. Kevin and Stanton delivered the message, and Carey Marshall brought us the music. Eventually, Carrie Quigg got into the mix for the children’s message. What the viewers did not see was Mike and Carey Marshall behind the scenes working with the camera and sound. I wonder if they miss those days?
From March to the end of May, that team made changes each week to improve the online service. One of the first changes the team made was to include a message to the children. Do you remember Mr. Petersen’s Neighborhood? How about the video clip greetings from different families at the start of the service. Those were so fun to watch. From kids doing Palm Parades in their own homes to making face shields we documented it all in our online service. However, things changed on May 31 when we moved to the Outpost for in-person services using the Outpost Outdoor Chapel.
Once we were at the Outpost, we started streaming the live service for our viewers. Through video and sound issues, our online audience continued to log into our online services. We continued to steam our live services as we moved to outdoor services using the Courtyard at the Chaska High School and a couple of services at our land. I guess you could say there were times where it felt like we were roadies taking the Sunday morning message on the road as we moved between three venues. It makes me tired just thinking about it.
Westbrook finally moved the Sunday morning services back to the auditorium in the Chaska High School in October. Due to some technical challenges of being in the auditorium, we started doing pre-recorded Sunday messages for our online viewers. We did this for almost two months, and during that time, we made improvements which enabled us to go back to a live stream for December.
We now have our online church platform with weekly hosts, a connection tab, a giving tab, and a private prayer tab. So what do you think? How are we doing? We want to know. Next week you will be getting an email with a survey. Let us know your thoughts so that we can continue to improve our online service.
To all of you who watch our online service – Thank You!