Apparently, at a Church Leaders online briefing with 10 Downing Street today, Peter Kerridge, CEO of Premier Christian Media was told by Boris Johnson that all live-streaming should not involve groups of people meeting. All such live-streaming should be limited to what one person (or presumably one household) could achieve on their own. This is to prevent the need for groups of people gathering in churches to livestream a service as a team.
Some churches have already ensured that different people create different parts of the service on their own in their own homes with the service them being a compilation of different videos. This seems to be what the Govt is expecting from everyone.
Others are using Zoom to create a more community centred celebration since different households can be involved in the leadership and discussion. Indeed, Andrew Graystone pointed out that his church has been doing this for the last couple of weeks. They unmute everyone for the Grace.
Certainly, Zoom is a more private way of doing church - church for those who already go. On the other hand, a number of churches are finding that live-streaming is INCREASING their congregations sometimes by more than a tenfold increase! Are people flocking to livestream because at last they can experience worship without coming to church?
But whatever you do, make sure you don't have a team gathering to do it. One person, one household should do the recording for each discrete bit of video and there should be no breaking of social isolation.
Let's hope none of us end up like Stephen Beach in the video.
