Across the Anglican Communion churches are innovating with technologies to keep the church engaged during the COVID-19 crisis. Many churches are using livestream technology but it can be a new frontier for many to explore as they deal with HDMI cards, cables, streaming services and internet upload speeds.
Zoom Conference Call
In addition, Zoom conference calls will be held throughout the week for those in ministry who would like to learn and share ideas for ministry and technology for the church in action during this crisis. Gafcon UK’s Susie Leafe and Gafcon Global Anglicans Communication Director, Ernie Didot, will co-host the following schedule:
24/03/20 Tuesday at 3 p.m. GMT for United Kingdom
25/03/20 Wednesday at 11:00 a.m. GMT (12 p.m. Lago, Nigeria) for Europe/Africa
25/03/20 Wednesday at 4:00 p.m. GMT (12:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time) for North America
26/03/20 Thursday at 7:45 a.m. GMT (6:45 p.m. Sydney Time) for Oceana/Australia
Brazil/Portuguese – (Reunião com falantes do idioma Portugês) – Sexta às 18 p.m. GMT (15h da tarde no Brasil).
Please fill this brief form out if you are interested in joining the Zoom call for your region and a Zoom link will be provided
Brazil
Marco from Brazil, a sound engineer, suggests using this Roland GO: Audio Mixer for Smarthphones (roughly $100). Figuring out the audio inputs can be a real challenge so this could be an effective solution.
North America and ACNA
Here is an excellent article from the Anglican Church in North America to help your church as you consider using these technologies.
Life https://churchonlineplatform.com/
Gafcon Communications Director, Ernie Didot, finds the Rode Wireless Go (roughly $200) to be an excellent microphone for quickly switching to other users as opposed to using the lavalier microphones which have wires that need to be hidden.
UK
Rev. Philip de Grey-Warter from Anchor Anglican in Fowey, Cornwall, UK shares, “Glen Scrivener in the UK has done an excellent podcast [here] which discusses the merits of different approaches to livecast/zoom/webex, etc. They also tackle some of the issues of how leading/preaching differs because of the medium. It would be a good place to sign post people to, beyond zoom basics.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZmNH6NivjKA
Australia
Daniel Willis reports that Sydney has been using this video as a helpful aid to get setup in livestreaming.
This Facebook group, “Online Church – Ideas and Resources” has lots of tech advice.
@IggyWong shares about Church Online Platform “It’s what life.church (creation of you version bible app) in the USA uses. They are giving their platform away for free. The main appeal for me is the easy clear access to key links/resources which Facebook live can’t provide. Instant prayer requests looks good too!” They also have an good blog page full of tech advice
For those wanting to use zoom for ministry this is a great Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/zoomforministry/