The Church of True Light entrance looked unusually quiet. For a moment I thought the church was closed. Oops, I was looking at the wrong doors. Two women were there at the front desk. One greeted me and asked for my name. I said, I am the guest preacher for the English congregation. She checked my temperature, and briskly showed me to the lift.
The worship hall was a welcome sight. They had done modest renovations and the place looked more conducive than before. Later, I found that I sounded good over the microphone. They must have upgraded the PA system too. Wonderful.
A tall, tan Anglican priest with silvered hair welcomed me, and I suddenly felt more at home. I have known Revd Vincent Hoon for close to two decades. We met as strangers put together to share a room in a Love Singapore Pastors Prayer Summit ages ago. We have since become prayer partners through thick and thin; fellow-pilgrims and fellow-servants in the Lord’s vineyard.
I met with their new vicar, Revd Barry, formerly from Marine Parade Anglican Church. He was newly posted to this church. This means he must be effectively bi-lingual. Later, at the end of the service, they showed a superbly done video introduction of him, and he came off as someone with confident, decisive, humorous and authentic. The former vicar, Revd Winston had retired, and as in any change of leadership, much prayer and patience and grace is needed in order that God’s purposes be fulfilled by His man in that new season the church is in.
Future priest Aaron, Revd Vincent Hoon, and myself with the plastic face shield
With some curiosity, I took a selfie to see how I look like beside the priests there. I look like some lau hero in a movie about containment of some infectious disease. I cannot say I felt like one when it was my turn to mount the stage and take the pulpit. It felt awkward. I chose a lapel mike. The crowd was sparse with thirty plus folks, and a battery of young adults at the end where the equipment for live-streaming and sound control were. Evidently, the Chinese services would be starting physical gatherings soon and were there to learn how to operate the equipment. So speaking to this disparate groups seated apart from each other except for couples felt different. “Are they listening to me?” I asked myself, as I felt a bit of nervousness. “Am I getting through?” As I reached the final third point I panicked because I realised I had missed a whole chunk of explanation in the second point. Since it was live-streamed I needed to keep it concise to 20 – 30 minutes, I had been reminded earlier. “Doesn’t matter…just carry on. The Lord is able to work with mistakes like this. He will make good come out of it.” Sometimes, people feel relief with short sermons. Hope that at least it is the case here.
The service began at 9am and ended at about 10am. Is this the “new normal”?
I was curious about how our neighbouring churches were doing during the covid 19 pandemic. I was familiar with what’s happening in Singapore. But try as I would I could not find much news about what’s happening among Malaysian churches except that 300 churches have applied in June to re-open for worship with all the usual safety measures in place and a maximum of 30 worshippers and for an hour and a half. Surprisingly the Indonesian church is the one with the best information due to a survey done by a research organization. Here are the links I have found pertinent and helpful:
SINGAPORE CHURCHES: https://www.straitstimes.com/lifestyle/christians-rise-of-the-hybrid-physical-and-digital-church THIS is definitely the best article that wraps up where the Singapore church is in terms of external response to Covid 19. It covers the rise of the “hybrid physical and digital church”, the generosity of churches in helping the foreign workers and the people hit with financial problems and job losses, and how some churches are resourcing other churches. Good, comprehensive and interesting article.
INDONESIAN CHURCHES: https://asiaevangelicals.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/AEA-Newsletter-202008.pdf THIS ARTICLE written by Dr Babang Budijanto, general secretary of Asia Evangelical Alliance is based on a national survey of 600 pastors in small and big cities in Indonesia done by Bilangan Research Center. Five concerns that the Indonesian churches face are: 1) Lack of capacity for digital engagement; 2) Decline in church revenue; 3) How to meet spiritual needs and give pastoral care; 4) Helping the poor and needy (job loss and health issues); 5) Members switching to another congregation with better online services. One interesting factor worth highlighting is how the presence of youth in the churches increased the church’s digital engagement and social involvement with the poor.
I am currently doing a Zoom Christian Education course on “Interpreting Scriptures” for the church. It will run for 11 sessions and this Wednesday night I would be doing the third session of one-and-a-half hour workshop.
Tom Cannon, one of our pastoral staff, gave the rest of the staff a basic training on how to use Zoom. It was a good orientation. However, I lacked confidence, so I had to practice on my own, some of the functions needed in my workshops: like how to share screen, and how to use the whiteboard. Even then I needed another staff member, Ethel Shin-Cannon to help me with the organization of the rooms, when participants are put in virtual rooms for work on the scripture texts.
The first session I was too ambitious. I wanted to get past the introduction quickly and crammed all the introductory material in one session. It was too long -two hours. After feedback, and also because there was less content material to cover, the next session was a sweet one-and-a-half hour. I will definitely get more and more comfortable as I get skilled in presenting material online through Zoom.
I can see a potential in this format that Covid-19 has forced upon the church. Before this, it was almost impossible to imagine members fighting heavy traffic, or after work gulping a quick meal to go to the church premises for Bible studies, and then after that take a one-hour commute home. Now with Zoom, they can comfortably go home, have a meal, and even a shower, and tune into a Zoom meeting. He or she still has to be hungry enough to fight the natural preference to chill after a day’s work (perhaps of staring into a computer), rather than to sign up and show up for a course (again on the computer). We are just lessening the number of hurdles that he or she has to jump over.
To keep the level of engagement high, the content has to be formatted in such a way that there is interaction, actual practice segment, and more conversational and less lecture like.
Perhaps it is too early to get over-excited but I suppose with the Covid 19 situation unlikely to improve anytime too soon there will be a need to use technology to build the faith of God’s people. The church staff thinks that even if things return to “normal” we can still reach out to more people for spiritual formation/Christian education courses. So we signed up for annual zoom subscriptions to get a discount on what we are paying currently on a monthly basis.
What we were doing during the Circuit Breaker stay-home period
Since the beginning of the circuit breaker (CB) the pastoral staff and worship teams have taken turns to record our songs, announcements and sermons from home and sent them to a strong media and editing team who then uploaded the pre-recorded, stitched-together online worship service. We have received good reviews and comments about our online presence, and are proud of the production standard, and have become quite used to doing it. Even though it was stressful and tiring. Stressful because we had to learn the skills of recording and that of preaching to an empty room. Stressful because the recording of songs and music and putting them all together was tedious and difficult. Stressful because putting together one service required thorough and long hours of editing. Not to speak of the meeting of deadlines.
What phase 2 circuit breaker re-opening allows
In terms of recording and broadcast of religious services and prayers, the MCCY allows:
“Religious organizations (RO) are encouraged to continue supporting the religious needs of their communities via remote means such as recording and broadcast of religious services and prayers. In Phase Two, we will allow up to 10 persons on-location for these productions, of which up to 5 persons can temporarily remove their masks when speaking or singing. Those who are unmasked for speaking / singing are strongly encouraged to maintain at least a 2 metres separation from other persons. All other persons present must remain masked and maintain a 1 metre separation. The time spent on-location for this activity should be kept as short as possible. The production team must also put in place safe management measures, including no-cross deployment between locations (where practicable), no socialisation during breaks and thorough cleaning of technical equipment”.
When it came to worship services: “Places of worship may resume congregational and other worship services, starting with up to 50 persons at a time(excluding religious and supporting workers, which should be kept to a minimum), subject to safe management measure. “
And in a key stipulation:
“Singing and other live performances are not permitted during the worship service. Singing is considered a higher risk activity as it could potentially release a larger amount of droplets. Places of worship may consider alternatives to singing and other live performance components in their worship services.
How churches are responding and why
I think churches are generally happy that there is communication between the MCCY and that they are sympathetic with the needs of mosques, temples, and churches. Churches appreciate the feedback and clarification sessions that had been taking place. Churches share the same concerns as MCCY and want to co-operate and keep Covid 19 in check in our country. After all religious gatherings have been a hotbed for the spread of the virus.
While it is good that up to 50 can now attend worship services, most churches have not jumped in to begin gathering physically. There are many reasons for this inertia. Different churches would have different reasons for being hesitant and remaining unchanged.
Most churches have, through quite a struggle, found a rhythm of doing church online, and have even been doing it well beyond their expectations. Their congregations have also gotten used to tuning in to meetings online. Even the older generation have learned to tune in. Many like the commute-free and shorter services. In a way they are in their comfort zone.
Having taken so much trouble to get to where they are, churches would be hesitant to go back to physical gatherings when there is no certainty if these liberties may soon be taken back if the infection numbers in the community rise up. Why not wait and see? Why switch back and forth?
Anyway, many churches need time to get things ready for re-opening. The Roman Catholic churches want their members to stick to one church and not move around to other churches to prevent cross infection. But to round up volunteers and train them takes time, so each parish can decide when they will re-open.
We have to admit that the restrictions on singing does discourage the return to physical gatherings. Singing was a part of Christian worship from the beginning, but with the rise of clergy, congregational singing went off the grid until the Reformation, which brought it back to the churches that left Roman Catholicism. Today congregational singing plays an important part of Christian worship. Members learn theology, express their feelings and adoration through congregational singing, and though they may not know it, witness to God’s love and grace in song. So if there is no singing …. it’s not the full experience of worship they have been used to. I know this topic about how essential singing is to worship is debatable and you may want to comment on this. Feel free to do so below.
Another reason for hesitation is that there are churches that have to share space in one building, or have their own halls in the same building. There are many churches in this position in industrial buildings as well as in HDB sites like the ones in Yishun, Clementi and Jurong where two or more churches are housed in the same building. The MCST have to ensure that the different congregations in the building do not cross-infect each other via common areas like staircases, lifts, and common restrooms. This also make churches in such situations think twice about meeting physically.
I would think a fuller experience of worship may be had at home where a small gathering of 5 church members joining a family at home, can tune in to online church service on Sundays and sing to their hearts content, and after that interact and share life authentically.
Watching worship team in church online
Our church has decided to gradually do all our recordings in church instead of from homes. We have begun with recording the sermons in church. This will be followed with all the worship songs being recorded in the church. In the meanwhile, we keep monitoring the situation, and prepare for the day when the church can re-gather physically. When that time comes, we will meet in church and have live streaming for those at home. We will also continue to leverage on technology to minister in prayer ministry and Christian education. It looks like Zoom meetings are here to stay.
Pre-recording in church sanctuary (Photo: Wayne)
I still do not know what the new normal will look like but from the looks of it more churches will be better off after the pandemic, for they had been forced into learning to leverage on technology, something it feared to do in the past. I expect churches will not discontinue some of the things they have picked up during the Circuit Breaker. Most will keep a stronger presence online than they had before. This augurs well for the “new normal” church!
What about your church or denomination? How are they responding to the new phase 2 circuit breaker re-opening?
The WHO has declared covid 19 a world pandemic. It is spreading around the world at an alarming rate. World wide emergency cabinet meetings and health orgainizations task forces have been trying to formulate plans to contain and defeat this invisible and clever enemy.
Over in Singapore there is a calm confidence. Yes years ago there was a panic when SARS hit our shores and we scrambled like crazy. When SARS ended there were reviews, evalutions and detailed contingency plans laid in case of another epidemic. This fine tuned plan is being implemented today. Kudos to the civil service and the government.
Together with the WHO announcement, came a speech from our Prime Minister. It was reassuring to hear from him. The thing that struck me as a pastor was his mention that religious meeting need to be shortened and the size of meetings reduced.
Pondering over this, it seems that this could be a good time for the church, steeped in tradition, and entrenched in a fixed way of dong things, to do a review and consider changes. Changes is difficult for church leaders and members. However, when something considered potentially life-threatening stares you and your family in the face, you would actually welcome change or at least accept that it is necessary.
To illustrate how difficult it is for the church to change its way of congregating or worshipping. What if we tell all church members to meet in homes in groups no larger than 20 people, on a Friday, Saturday or Sunday watching a pre-recorded service or live stream? And that would substitute for the Worship Service. Tradition will cry out, Can the Eucharist be conducted at home? Pragmatism will query, How do we collect the offerings? Will there be a drop in finances? Parents will plead, What will we do with our children without Sunday School or children’s church? Small churches will cry out, We don’t have media expertise to do pre-recorded services or live streaming?
Changes are difficult, but if the church is willing to steer a steady and determined course and discern what is best in its context, and make necessary changes, that church will be all the better and stronger after the changes.
The mustard seed must welcome change in its form to grow into a tree, and the leaven must create disruption and ferment in the flour, and change the flour’s constitution for it to become baked bread.
I would be happy to hear your comments or suggestions of how we should co-operate with government advisories like the one issued by the Prime Minister.
