Most churches quickly adapted to streaming services online during the COVID-19 pandemic. There were already many churches streaming or uploading services to online platforms for those who were unable to attend, even before states began to shelter in place. So, churches made the quick transition to services online, learning from their own trial and error and from others.
The question for many churches was how to continue activities that required more interaction and involved smaller and more intimate groups. Every church has a variety of ministries like small groups, children, youth, worship, and prayer; and each one of these ministries is just as important as the services that take place on Sunday.
The ministries of a church help to create community and fellowship among the members. Ministries are vital to churches because they bring together members of the church and help form new relationships. They provide an intimate space for people to learn, but also aid in church outreach. Since ministries involve far more interaction and closeness than a large Sunday morning service, it also requires more creativity and effort to maintain during this time of social distancing.
Archbishop Peter Comensoli, in an online article from the Crux, said it is important that all ministries continue to operate and continue outreach, just through online formats. So, each church and each ministry must determine how to continue their operations, while navigating new online platforms.
Worship Ministries
Worship Ministries are a big part of churches. For most, worship takes place in all areas of a church. From children’s ministries, to youth, to Sunday services, and to stand alone worships times; praising the Lord through music has been used all around the church. Corporate worship is an important fellowship experience, and important individually too for members of the church to get to let out their praise and prayers through worship.
Churches are finding a variety of ways to combat the lack of worshiping due to shelter in place orders. True North Church in Augusta, GA has decided to perform their worship live on Sunday mornings for their regular church services, and on Thursday nights for an acoustic set. For their Sunday services, they include all eight of their band members, tech, and sound guys. True North’s worship ministries are still operating as normal. They are performing full sets, with full tech, lighting, and sound. Except, of course, they are no longer performing for a sanctuary full of people, but now an empty auditorium.
“It’s not near as fun playing when the church body is not in the room with you, but we are lucky that technology allows us to be together in a different way.”
bennet Schimmelpfennig, Lead Guitarist for True North Church
Other churches are trying to make worship feel like a more intimate experience while performing online. Sugar Grove Church, in Goshen, IN, has switched to only acoustic sets for their Sunday morning services. They keep most of their worship sets to two or three people performing. Instead of continuing to perform on a platform live, with lights and tech. They prerecord their worship and choose to sit in a small close room.
Kankakee First Church of the Nazarene performs its worship live for Sunday services as well, but they found that many of their services were missing their times of worship. Hispanic ministries, children’s ministries, and youth ministries all take part in their own types of worship to engage in fellowship with each other. So, to still find a way to praise the Lord, Spotify playlists that can be shared have been made with those specific ministries favorite songs.
True North Band is getting all their instruments ready to go for their live performance on line for their Sunday morning service 
Even when streaming online, making sure the sound and technology is running just right is an important job! 
While live streaming, it is important to have all cameras up and running properly. It can be a stressful job, but True North has an excellent team who works hard to make every performance look great! 
True North’s sound team makes sure that all equipment is set up and working properly before each performance. 
After everything is set up and checked, it is time to start streaming and worshiping the Lord as one body of Christ! 
True North’s team puts in hard work every week. From musical practices, to stage step up, to light, cameras, and tech, True North’s delivers a great performance! 
We may not be able to gather together anymore, but True North’s worship team tries hard to make it our Sunday mornings feel as normal as possible.
Children’s Ministries
It can be hard enough to keep a child’s attention when trying to teach them in person, but when it comes to finding engaging ways to connect with children online, the difficulty increases. Let’s face it, most children would rather watch a TV show, play a game, or mess with their siblings than sit still a listen to a pastor preach.
Going beyond just trying to hold a child’s attention, it is also the purpose of Children’s Ministries to connect with a child and show them the light of Christ and how to share that light with others. Cindi Schimmelpfennig, Children’s Pastor at Kankakee First Church of the Nazarene, is trying to find the best ways to do just that while abiding by Illinois’s shelter in place order.
In order to community with each family, the ministry has set up a Facebook group for each family involved in the ministry. On the Facebook page the children and parents can receive updates, share stories and pictures, and watch the children’s services.
Schimmelpfennig has started a variety of programs and initiatives to engage the children that are a part of her ministry and continue to help draw them closer to God. First, once a week Schimmelpfennig posts a challenge for the children to participate in and have the chance to win prizes. Some of the challenges have included art contests, cleaning competitions, cooking/baking, and other themed contests. The parents then post the pictures to the Facebook group. The winners have pizza delivered to their homes, ice cream dropped off by a pastor, or small prizes delivered via Amazon. The children have also been making cards for health care workers and teachers every few weeks. Schimmelpfennig and another pastor involved in Children’s Ministries collect the cards and distributes them. Along with collecting the cards, every two week they create fun gifts to give each child to help them to continue to feel connected to their pastors.
Schimmelpfennig of course misses the in-person interactions that she has with her students, but appreciates how technology continues to keep her ministry going.
Youth Ministries
While teenagers are older than the students found within a children’s ministry, it can be just as hard to engage with them at times. So, many churches are continuing to work hard to find new ways to engage teenagers and help them feel connected with their friends and mentors within the church.
True North is taking advantage of this generations’ tech savviness, and has begun using social media for all of its youth ministry activities. Every Wednesday night True North live streams a 30-minute service on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube. The first 15 minutes of that live involve a variety of interactive games. The youth ministry staff and volunteers work hard each week to create fun and engaging games. These games could require students to comment, to send in pictures, or to complete different challenges. After the games are over and winners declared, the youth pastor, Jeremy Moyer, gives a 15-minute sermon. Along with a quick service every week, they have managed to keep their small groups running. Like most churches, True North has turned to using Zoom in order to meet each week with their small groups. This provides a community and a chance to continue relationships, while still growing closer to God.
