use what you have and pivot

With the onset of Covid-19, Pastor Dave and Phillip (Rockstar a/v guy), pivoted to use equipment they already had on the campus in another building to build the capability to livestream church services.  In his recent letter to his council, Pastor Dave said,  "Online worship went from being, 'we should move forward when we get new cameras,' to, 'we should move forward immediately so we can offer worship in a time we can’t gather!' We are learning very quickly how to do live stream worship. It’s not perfection but we will keep tweaking and making improvements. Our goal is to provide the best experience we can for as many as we can. It’s different preaching...but, we clearly have a sense that many are worshiping with us online. It’s hard to describe but 'you sense it'."  Part of what makes this work is that Good Shepherd has some folks assigned to interact with others during worship via social media and throughout the morning. 

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A mid-March example of how Good Shepherd Lutheran Church (Gaithersburg, MD) is doing church online

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​"The virus is terrible but we all should be realizing that our ministry really is a movement that can’t be contained to a facility. He encouraged his Council and staff to think of the really positive things that have happened as they quickly adapted to changing realities.

• 35 "Connection Callers" to reach out to all the households of our church (400+ households). “We know a lot more of what’s going on in the lives of our parishioners. Lots of updates and prayer requests.”
• ​Musicians pre-recorded several weeks’ worth of music. "Our plan remains to lead worship 'live each week' but ...if we need it, we have music through Easter Sunday ready." 
• Thought quickly about how they could gather together in new and creative ways. As they saw the "buy in" to the reality that online worshipcan be meaningful, Pastor Dave said, “In front of us is a tremendous evangelism opportunity. If folks keep sharing our worship experience with others (as they did in the first two weeks), I think we will see a growing number of people connecting with our parish.”
• “Jesus Lives” - Collaborating on ways to adapt Family and Children Ministry – Staff considered new ideas like, "What about a car magnet/refrigerator magnet that says 'Jesus Lives?'" They agreed it would be well worth buying a large quantity of these and finding a way to hand them out in their parking lot in a safe manner. 

Pastor Dave’s bottom line in leveraging the online worship and ministry envieronment, "Online is a work in progress. For us, essentially the entire church is quickly realizing the blessing of having online worship.   They are sharing it with others. They are “signing in” so we know who’s participating  (more than 500 sign in each week.  More watch but don’t sign in).   We had multiple folks engaging others during worship last weekend.   We encouraged folks to share the peace virtually with others in real time (via text, IM, facebook post).   We have been asking folks to share photos with us.  They are.  Truthfully, each week right now is a way in which I am reminded that even when folks gather together in person, there will be an online campus of GS that we need to engage and always welcome and include verbally. I am very proud of what we are doing and believe it sends a powerful message of hope to see a full service, good singing, and a sense that we are moving forward!"

Collaborate, try something new, learn, pivot, and try again.
Pitch what doesn’t work; Keep what does!

How does Good Shepherd communicate this to their parishoners?  Check out their Live webpage: Good Shepherd Live Feed website link 

How do they account for worship attendance? Check out their Google form: Good Shepherd "Required" Check-in Link 

For technical expertise on audio/visual:  philip@goserve.net