Worship: Up Close and at a Distance

My morning is getting away from me; I had planned to write about the experience of moving back to in-person worship.  I will do that at a later point.

I also want to keep thinking about what we've learned from a year of worshipping from a distance.  There are pieces of that experience that I hope not to lose.

Right now, at my church, we're back to traditional worship, and we're livestreaming it, which is then recorded for those who need to watch later.  Is that enough?  Can we do more?

The traditional service at my church has never been very interactive.  We've never been a congregation that belts out favorite songs.  We don't have a wide variety of people offering sermons or verbal meditations.

So how can we keep people involved from a distance, as we move back to gathering in person?  I was pleased to see that Rabbi Rachel Barenblat has written about this topic in this blog post:

"As we return to offering some onsite programming, like this morning's Shabbat services, we're met with a choice. We could go back to the way things were before, and stop offering an option for digital participation. Or, we can try to figure out how to chart a new path so that both the "roomies" and the "zoomies" are full participants in our community. So that those who are homebound don't lose access to what we do.

But it's not just about ensuring that if one of us is homebound or doing a stint in a rehab facility we can still watch CBI's services as though they were on tv. The real challenge is figuring out how 'zoomies' can be full participants. How we can all see each other, whether onsite or online. How all of our voices can be heard, whether onsite or online. How we can all count in the minyan, whether onsite or online."

Back to me:

I look forward to seeing what her community creates.  I look forward to seeing what all of us create.  Let us rise to the task and not faint with fear at the immensity of it.