Tuesday morning in our staff meeting, Megan, Casey, Eva, Matt and I spoke extensively about COVID and our current live-streaming-with-congregants plan. As Corinne Orlando mentioned a few weeks ago in our What's Next meeting, we knew a time would come when we would need to reevaluate and make other plans. The staff in our meeting were all in agreement that the time has come. I spoke also with George White and he is in agreement. On Tuesday afternoon, each member of the What's Next team weighed in and were 100% in agreement. Here are the issues we see and then what we plan to implement.
When we started live-streaming and bringing in the congregation, I felt very good about our protocols and safeguards. Many people have worked hard to get all of this together. For the most part, it has gone well. Two things are not great, however. First, COVID is on the rise in New Jersey, as it is all across the country. There is great concern in the medical community that the upcoming holidays will only speed the growth of COVID. More people will become infected and some of them will need hospitalization and some, undoubtedly, will die. We never want to do something that would endanger ourselves or others.
Second, it is not possible for our tech crew to do their work socially distanced. From where I sit in the sanctuary, I am keenly aware that they are shoulder to shoulder or perhaps a foot or two apart at most in the balcony. Our tech team is doing a great job and enjoying the camaraderie and the challenge. The nature of the work requires more than one person, right now about three people, and they have to be close enough to whisper to each other. The soundboard and the camera center are hard-wired together, which means they can't easily be moved or spread apart. So, in essence, in live-streaming, we are having good people from our church family breaking our safety code and the safety regulations put forth by the CDC and others. They are people from different families, indoors, and within inches of each other for more than an hour. This is risky. Even with masks and windows open, we haven't hit the safety protocols for them. It should also be said that all three of them have reasons to be extra careful so we are asking a lot of them. Rather than waiting for any of them to opt-out and be left feeling like they've let us down, we believe it is time for us to act and to equalize the safety of the tech crew with the care we give to the safety of the staff and the congregants. Unfortunately, that means it's time to stop live-streaming.
In speaking with George the tech folks could spend this downtime exploring options, perhaps seeing if they could redo the hard wiring to try to space the tech folks apart, maybe come up with some headphones with mics to whisper to each other, etc. This will take some time and may not give us the six feet of distance we need among people or it may have other unintended consequences. It is something to be explored, but it is not to be rushed in order to have a new plan.
What the staff recommends and What's Next endorsed is that we stop live-streaming worship and go back to prerecorded worship beginning this Sunday, November 22. In order to keep some of the benefits of live streaming, we would have whoever is preaching record their parts in the sanctuary. Our musicians are meeting every other Thursday night to record music for Advent and Christmas. They can do that safely from a distance. Other liturgists will either record from home as we did until recently or they will come to the sanctuary alone and use the tripod and record there. Megan Coiley will sew the pieces together and have the worship service ready for your viewing on Sunday morning or at a later time for your convenience. Congregants who prefer will continue to receive the full service in the mail following Sunday's worship.
This plan for worship will continue at least into January when we can reevaluate the situation based on COVID cases and any troubleshooting the tech folks are able to do to lessen the risk for those on the balcony.
We are grateful for your commitment to our worship life and also to safety during the pandemic. One staff member commented on how great it is to work at a church that truly cares about the staff and volunteers and the congregation like this. The pandemic has given us many opportunities to practice flexibility and to keep our focus on what matters the most. We know we can worship from home. And we know that we will return to the sanctuary and be able to resume live-streaming our worship in the future. Until then, we keep loving God and loving neighbors.
If you have any questions or comments, I'm happy to hear from you.
Thank you for your faithfulness during this challenging time. You are a wonderful congregation. I thank God for each of you.
