Worshipping in a COVID World
The worship ministry recently held their first in-person worship ministry meeting, the first in two years. Toshi shares with us the ways that God has provided for the ministry over the past two years.
“It’s so difficult to worship just looking at a screen!”
This heart’s cry is more common than we might expect. If you’re like me, Sunday services in the past two years could have been a weekly internal struggle of knowing that we’re supposed to be fully engaged on one hand, but struggling to connect in heart and spirit with all the restrictions. As a worship ministry team, we were admittedly overwhelmed by the constant changes, but with God’s strength, and the support of ministry members that encouraged one another, we resolved to have our first worship ministry meeting in two years, hybrid – with over 30 members in person and roughly another 10 online.
After being unable to meet as a whole ministry for so long, it was encouraging to have time set aside to hear from one another, and catch up on how God is working in each of our lives. It was especially heart-warming to have members from the choir, who have been hit the hardest with safe distancing measures, to come and find out how they can continue to serve the church community in different ways. We were grateful for the opportunity to thank them for their efforts to record anthems for our blessing and for individuals like Martin who stepped up to offer his time and energy to learn and beautifully put together the recordings on his own!
Witnessing the growth of the ministry, not just in numbers but in spiritual and musical maturity, has been a humbling and convicting experience. Understanding the individual “dying-to-self” – the sacrifices of time, energy, pride, and even musical preferences and styles, that happen on a regular basis so that we are united in our praise and adoration to God rather than our differences – encourages us every week.
A lot of hard work also went into setting up the system to support the weekly livestreams. The ministry had to put together a team and set up the equipment in the early days of COVID. This audio-visual quality slowly evolved, with the inclusion of additional laptops for streaming, cameras from multiple angles, managing both live and YouTube audio and the need to toggle different screens. This takes place behind the scenes and requires intensive training and a full production team that serves faithfully every week to help our members who are unable to attend to best connect with the larger church.
We still have a long way to go to better bring our congregation into a time of corporate worship on Saturdays and Sundays, whether in person or online, but with the continued dedication of church members to come alongside one another and serve and pray, and “not give up meeting together”, we hope to help our congregation fix their eyes and hearts on Jesus.
If you're keen to find out more about what the ministry does and how to be a part of the ministry, feel free to contact Toshi (toshiyuki.mori@gmail.com), Aaron (aaronlumzy@gmail.com) or Lup Meng (lam.lup.meng@gmail.com).