The Church is not a Steeple; it is her People

Every year a large number of people gather at church during Passion Week. However, this year, though they hoped to meet, it was not possible due to the lockdown. None of the members of traditional churches would have ever imagined staying at home on Good Friday and Easter. The adage, ‘The church is not a steeple; it is her people’ has never been truer than during this pandemic. While new age churches have been telecasting their services for many years, traditional churches have barely used audiovisual technology in the past except for projecting the worship order and song lyrics during services.

When the lockdown was imposed, these traditional churches were silent for a few weeks. The need to reach out to people who could not meet in church urged the priest and the lay leaders of a traditional Syrian Christian Church on Harrington Road to think of alternate options. They started telecasting their two worship services live every Sunday morning. Full-fledged communion services were also conducted by the priest, assisted by two deacons, following COVID-19 protocols.

A communion service being telecast from the church

The hymns for the worship services were led by a virtual choir of singers and instrumentalists. They would record their parts which would later be compiled together to be projected at the appropriate time during the service. The amount of effort that was put in for the recording and the projection of services and songs showed the desire of the people to worship and their willingness to put in any amount of time and effort that was required.

Youth Service

This church also used the opportunity to conduct a special online service with their former youth members, across generations, who are now spread all over the world. Prayers written by alumni youth members, Bible readings, testimonies of those who had gone into full-time ministry, sermon, singing and music were all recorded by each individual member and emailed to the organising team in Chennai. The team then put the whole service together. “This made us feel like we belonged to something, a time and age that brought great memories. These moments also strengthen our faith and our loyalty to the church. The tech, of course, made it all so easy”, said Mr Ajit Isaac, who currently resides in Bengaluru. Amy Thomas from Muscat, while reminiscing said, “The opportunity to participate in this service was of course very special but apart from that, it was also very therapeutic. It was a great reminder that while everything about this current pandemic screams ‘uncertainty’, here was something that could help me look at the past with gratitude and look at the future with hope. It also reinforced in me the truth that when people come together with commitment and conviction, great things can happen.”

Navin Mathew who now lives in the US commented, “We are living in peculiar times, perhaps not experienced since WWII (not in the devastation, but in its worldwide reach) and the church did something remarkable. We were called back and we sought our Lord’s face together on behalf of our family and nation, on behalf of His creation, despite our collective rebellion.” It was also exciting and memorable for the church’s congregation, since they were seeing some of the former youth after nearly 30 years.

The church also brought together their old choir members from across the world to sing together virtually. These members gathered to sing in 4-part harmony. The church even used this occasion to honour their late Choirmaster, Mr Thampy Paul, who had served the church for many years. Some churches used this opportunity to come together to sing their old Sunday school songs, and were thus able to re-bond after many years. The pandemic did bring about some good, as the talent that was spread across the world had the joy of singing together again.

Voices from various generations singing in honour of a beloved Choirmaster

Another benefit the pandemic opened up for the online church was that the speaker for the service could be from any part of the world. The church was not restricted by time or geography in inviting a person to speak for the Sunday worship service. People who preached God’s word noticed a surge in online viewership. The wide world was now a congregation. People were able to participate in other church services apart from the services held by the churches they regularly attended. As most Christians are members of a particular church and church hopping is not common, the pandemic allowed people to attend multiple worship services and gave them an idea of how other Christians worship the same Jesus Christ.

Churches also used technology for their other activities like Youth meetings, Sunday School classes, VBS, Area prayer meetings and even Bible studies. Even weddings and funerals were being live-streamed. Recently the ordination ceremony of the Metropolitan (Head) of this church was also telecast to the entire world, thanks to livestreaming. Vicars and pastors had to adapt to technology to reach out to their congregation as house visiting was not possible. During the pandemic, many church members fell sick; some were going through financial struggles, depression, loneliness and even the death of loved ones. As the shepherd of the flock, the vicar and lay leaders made every effort to connect with members to get to know their problems in order to reach out to the congregation during this time of crisis.

As live telecasting is expensive, some churches conduct their services via Zoom and other video conferencing platforms. Irrespective of the methods and platforms chosen, the online church was a big change for the congregation, especially for the elders of the church. Even though they found it difficult to familiarize themselves with technology at first, it helped them to stay connected and not get lost in the loneliness of the pandemic.

The congregation definitely missed coming together on Sundays for fellowship, but the pandemic brought about a new appreciation for meeting at church every Sunday.

Editors: Tenny Ann Thomas, Dainty W