Wisdom Wednesday: Livestream

Grace and peace to you. I’m Rev. Joe Cailles, the pastor of Peakland United Methodist Church in Lynchburg Virginia. Welcome to Wisdom Wednesdays. I’m posting videos each Wednesday sharing devotions, discussing our church book studies or like I’m doing today, sharing a bit of church news about Sunday worship.

Since Covid began, Peakland had been pre-recording a Sunday worship service, specifically for online viewing. We recorded on Tuesdays and Wednesdays and posted it Sunday morning. From the beginning Linwood Campbell, Peakland’s worship leader and go to tech guru, was instrumental in crafting our pre-recorded video services.
It took a lot of time during the week for Linwood to do this.

Now that we are coming out of Covid and doing more and more in-person ministry, Linwood and I along with our church worship leaders decided it was time to try a new thing with Sunday worship. Instead of pre-recording, we are now livestreaming our Sunday worship.

For folks worshipping online, you’ll be able to participate along with those here in person in the sanctuary. As of now, we can only livestream our 11:00 sanctuary worship. We have new cameras set up in the sanctuary, so you’ll be able to see and hear the worship leaders and me when I’m standing on the floor.

When I’’m at the pulpit.

When I’m behind the table.

At the lectern.

In the choir.

We’ll post the lyrics of the hymns and the word of the prayers and scriptures on your screen, so you can follow along with the congregation.

For those of you who are going to be worshipping in the room and don’t really want to be on camera, fear not. We will keep the camera focused up here.

This Sunday, February 5, is a communion Sunday here at Peakland. We extend God’s table beyond this room and into the homes of our online folks. This Sunday if you are joining us online for worship, have a cup of grape juice and some bread for your household and follow along.

We at Peakland believe Christ is calling us to be reaching out, serving all, and extending God’s table. It takes many hands to make this livestream worship work. Linwood has recruited a team of church volunteers already, but if you’d like to help out make online worship possible, send him an email at this address. We are still working some of the technical issues out, so if you notice some sound issues or faulty streaming, let me know. I sure am grateful to God for Linwood and for all the folks who make our new livestream worship possible.

Thanks be to God! Amen.