Engaging the Church During Social Distancing and CoronaVirus

By Fr. Joseph Sund, Associate Pastor of Catholic Parishes of Western Holt and Boyd County

Guest Post from his Blog www.techypriest.com

It amazes me the places God puts us. The fact that I am a priest serving seven churches in rural Nebraska during a time that, for the first time since 1918, our church faces the threat of cancelling the public celebration of Mass. Couple this with the fact that my life prior to priesthood was thoroughly engaged in technology. I have made active strides not to leave that life entirely behind but to continue to learn as tech grows.

This is the moment we have to make a decision to engage our parishioners through Facebook and other mediums. Here’s the thing. If this would have happened even a few years ago the tools we have now would not be available. While I plan on using some higher technology to do engagement for our cluster of parishes, a pastor or parish leader only really needs his cell phone to do this.

Our Vicar for Clergy in Omaha recently did a webinar talking about streaming Mass and running a parish during this health crisis. Watching that compelled me to offer some of my expertise to a larger community.

I want to explore several options to keep parishioners engaged. If you have an questions please comment so I can help!

LIVE-STREAMING SUNDAY MASS

There are several diocese throughout the United States that have already suspended the public celebration of liturgy. When this happens, the obligation to attend Sunday Mass is dispensed.

However, it would be irresponsible as parish leaders to leave the faithful without spiritual nourishment during a time that they need it the most. To live-stream Mass, it is best to use Facebook Live. Posting a Facebook live video is as easy as making a status update from your phone.

The best way to learn is to open the app on your iPhone and do some experimenting on your personal Facebook page. Don’t be embarrassed to try it out… Your messing up will actually be a promotional tool for when you do broadcast. If your parish does not yet have a Facebook Page — get moving! And if all of this confuses you — this is a prime opportunity to engage some young volunteers.

Beyond a phone, you’ll probably want a tripod to keep things steady.  This one on Amazon allows you to wrap around stuff such as a pew or a chair.

Location — Sound — Lighting

For live-streaming to our parishes we have decided to use our rectory chapel. For low budget and last minute this is the best. Though your phone has a very good microphone; it was not built for the acoustics of your church and unless you spend a little extra on some equipment, your hard of hearing parishioners will only hear the HVAC unit if you record in the church.

Ideally, when you are live-streaming you will want another person behind the phone. Eliminate the problems of glare before you begin broadcast. You may need to adjust blinds and change lighting. If you do not have a producer behind the phone make sure you set the frame and remain in that frame… this means you will need to proclaim and preach from the altar. Appoint someone to be a volunteer in the chat section. This person will let your producer know if volume or picture is bad and will also help to coordinate an offertory.

Project your voice — The mic picks up ambient noise. The iPhone mic however does have technology that it will focus toward the voice with “noise cancelling”. If you project well, your phone will figure out the rest.

Advertise

The first time your parishioners hear about the live-stream should not be when you start it. Email blast — Facebook updates — and yes maybe even a snail mail so your older folks can ask their children to get it set up. Also, many pastors may hate to hear this but SPEND MONEY — use a Facebook advertisement. This will push to people in your area who haven’t LIKED your page. We are talking $50 MAX.

The Collection

One of the elements from the Webinar that I did not think of was tying a collection into the live-stream. Let’s be honest, if we have to go a month without a physical collection, the parish accounts won’t look pretty.

Have someone set aside in the chat of the live stream to encourage this to take place. They will post the link to your online giving section of your page. Alternatively, if you have not yet set up online giving and are in a pinch, you could use the Facebook non-profits giving. MAKE SURE YOU TAKE A PAUSE TO ALLOW PEOPLE TO GIVE. Placement is key. I think ending the homily with collection appeal might be a good time. There is nothing set in stone that the collection needs to take place after the petitions. Just DON’T do it after Mass.

Communion

Your people can’t receive communion when watching a live-stream. After the priest has consumed, pray the communion antiphon and then lead the people in the prayer of Spiritual Communion. It may be helpful to project this into the live stream (if you have the expertise.). or simply to have your chat moderator copy and paste it into the chat window.

Feedback

This might go against the flow for some. It may also bring you back to the days of your preaching class in seminary. Encourage people to press the reaction icons during the homily. I know it seems “not Catholic” to react, but here’s the thing. If you lose their interest during the homily, CandyCrush is in the next tab… with zero guilt of the lady in the pew behind them.

Jesus Saves

After you have finished your live-stream, Facebook will ask you if you want to post the live stream for future viewing. YES YOU DO! This will allow people to attend later in the day or even later in the week to revisit Mass. It will also serve as a promotion for future weeks.

Tutorials

I am not going to recreate the wheel on “how to” videos. There are people who have done much better than I could. But I did compile some links.

Webinar from PSG Referenced Earlier. More Links on their page of tutorials

LifeWire Guide to Facebook Live

TIE IN WITH YOUR SCHOOL

If you have a school attached to your parish, they are already having this tech conversation. (Huge List of Free Resources for Schools during coronavirus)

1. Don’t miss school Mass. If you have a weekly school Mass — Keep it … set up your live stream in a small chapel — advertise to parents. This will help parents to fill part of the days schedule with a meaningful and prayerful activity.
2. Don’t Cancel Priest Visits – If you have visits with classrooms. Talk to the teachers. He or she might be planning to send out videos with packets to parents during time away from school. A five minute short video from Father can be shared with all your teachers and can keep that face-time (Pun totally intended.). You can do this with the camera app on your phone and email it to the teacher.

Bible Studies

Engage your parishioners with more Facebook Live with Bible Studies. You may even want to make use of your Formed.org subscription for this. If you have lay adults that lead Bible studies; make sure they have content creation permissions to your Facebook page and allow them to Live Stream their bible study class that was physically cancelled. (They will likely get more people!)

Google Forms prayer team

Create a form on Google Forms. Make sure people know it is public. People can place prayer intentions that will automatically be populated into a shared spreadsheet. To do this you will create the form and then click the option to view results in spreadsheet. Share the link to this spreadsheet.

Alternatively, you could create a Facebook post and encourage comments on it for prayer requests.

Staff and Volunteers

If your office happens to close as well, we are in a situation that we need to work from home. Here are a few ideas. Especially, if your employees are hourly wage, they need this income to live. There is plenty of work to be done from home.

ParishSoft update – If you are on the online version of ParishSoft. Have employees (or volunteers) update email addresses, phone number, children, or stewardship information (such as what gifts and talents they have) in ParishSoft.

Onedrive, DropBox, Google Docs ... Choose one… If you don’t already have a cloud based solution in your parish office; at least create something small to share and collaborate on files during this time. You don’t need to cloud base your entire shared files — But this will allow people to work from home. I encourage Office365 — the “Online only” version is free. (However, as a non-profit you can get a good discount on the software package…)

Clean Up Your Website – you know that link to sign up to serve food at the 2007 parish jubilee? It doesn’t need to be on your website. People will be visiting your parish website a lot more. Have employees take time to clean it up. Make sure you place links to your Facebook page and any digital engagement during this time.

Check out more tips and thoughts at  Fr. Sund’s Blog at techypriest.com.