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Adapting to Covid-19

This page is work in progress and contains a summary of what has been done within the congregation to adapt to circumstances surrounding the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020.

Worship

Attendance at the church for the worship was seen as too risky for many in the congregation, and was eventually proscribed by Government edict anyway. Traditional worship was replaced by:

Worship streamed live in Sunday mornings at 10:00am on a YouTube channel and subsequently made available as a video podcast. Members of the congregation pre-record prayers, bible readings, songs, and other relevant materials for use in worship.

Prayer Live Broadcast 7:00am Wednesdays

Evening Reflection Live Broadcast 7:30pm Thursdays.

See also CovidResponseMarch18 for immediate decisions.

Music in Worship

Music has traditionally played an important part in the worship of the Glen Waverley Uniting Church. "A church or school without a choir is like a body without a soul (John Rutter)."

Singing, either by a worshiping congregation or by choirs, is considered to be a particularly dangerous activity in the context of spreading a virus like Covid-19.

The following approaches were taken to provide music associated with live streamed worship.

1. Musically and technologically gifted families used multi-track recording techniques in their homes to prepare songs that were subsequently inserted into worship, along with words, to allow listeners to sing along if they wished.
2. Hymns from previously recorded worship services were extracted from recordings and inserted into worship.

3. The FreeSpirit choir produced Zoom versions of anthems and blessings previously recorded and prepared some 'Zoom choir' new work as recordings that were inserted into worship.

Contact with the Ministerial Team

For reasons of safety, the ability of the ministerial team to visit members of the congregation was extremely limited. While the ministerial team was generally accessible by phone, designated times were set aside each week to encourage Cuppa Calls with each member of the ministerial team as well as a time for a Zoom check-in with NeilPeters. In addition, members of the ministerial team often dropped into Zoom meetings held by different groups within the church.

• GOMERs on Monday mornings (see below) was regularly attended by Neil.
• GOWERs on Monday mornings was regularly attended by Di, who often switched across to the men's group zoom (GOMERs) afterwards.
• ‘Check-In Thursday’ with Neil - Zoom - Neil’s Zoom meeting took place on Thursday’s at 10am (for 40 minutes). This was an informal chat session (not a Bible study or prayer session) and a great way to get to know Neil and other members of the congregation. A topic was included in the emailed bulletin. These topics were discussed but many other topics were talked about too. Topics have included “My Garden”and “Holidays”.

Activities for Children, Families, and Young People

• The Youth Group for secondary school age youth continued to meet using zoom.
• 'Mice, Kats and Dogs' activities for young children continued fortnightly using zoom
• Uthies programme for upper primary school age children continued fortnightly using zoom
• The Young Adults group continued to meet and keep in touch on-line
• On-line activities were held for children and families.

Keeping in Touch with Members of the Congregation

The following initiatives encourage people to keep in touch.

Happy Day emails. Every day an email is sent to all on-line members of the congregation containing something encouraging, light hearted, or inspirational as a reminder that the community of the congregation is still active, even though we can't meet with each other.

Drop-in (mystery) call. Provided a way for people to meet people in the congregation that they may not know well. People were invited to register their interest in receiving a phone call (or a Zoom) from someone in the congregation that they may not know with a view to getting to know them better. With this list, pairs were randomly selected and the people involved informed and invited to call each other.

Watch and chat. Some people enjoyed watching concerts, musical events, and other things on YouTube and catch up TV. This initiative encouraged people to agree a time to watch something and then follow up with a chat to discuss (either one or one, or in small Zoom groups).

Did you know? Provided information about on-line entertainment that members of the congregation might enjoy. See GomerFun and CovidCommunications.

What's going on? Groups were asked for a sentence or two (and maybe a photo or screenshot) about what they did to keep together when we couldn't physically meet. Responses were be put on a wikipage, in Kingsway and perhaps trickled out in 'Happy Day' emails.

Who am I? To help people get to know more people in the congregation, clues about a person were given out over a week in 'Happy Day' emails and members of the congregation asked to try to guess who the person is. Saturdays were the reveal.

Feedback during worship. A cheap pre-paid mobile SIM and number was published during live stream worship with a question seeking SMS feedback (during worship).

Would you like us to contact you? At the conclusion of worship live stream, watchers are asked to contact us if they wish. Watchers are also asked if they would like us to contact them (e.g. send us an email at .... if you would like us to contact you).

Remembering those who are not on-line. Many of the activities of the congregation during Covid-19 restrictions were on-line. However, we were mindful that not everyone is on-line. To keep in touch with those people, letters are periodically sent to those people containing news. Some people have DVDs of worship delivered to them. Contact with some people was maintained by telephone.

Church Council, Missional Groups, Functional Groups

Committees of the congregation that usually meet in person used Zoom (see CommunicationsChannelsZoom) meetings to do their business.

Other Church Groups

Gomer

GOMER (GomerInfo) is a group for men to have a walk, coffee and a chat on Monday mornings. They are usually accompanied by wives meeting as a separate group at the same time. This transitioned to a Zoom meeting on Monday mornings at 10:00am. GomerFun is a page that originated from this Zoom meeting.

Mindful Meditation

The mindful meditation group transitioned to Zoom meetings on Tuesday afternoons at 2:00pm.

Free Spirit (Choir)

FreeSpirit met using Zoom at its normal practice time to prepare musical recordings for use in worship.

Saturday Morning Coffee Group

This group usually meet in the Food Court of The Glen on Saturday mornings at 10am. During COVID, they met via Zoom, and this has enabled our friends from Canada, the Robinsons, to join us!

Bi-lingual Indonesian-English Bible Study, fellowship and faith sharing

Held fortnightly on zoom. It followed the lectionary. Under the leadership of Daniel Sihombing it took place in Indonesian and English giving everyone a voice. Between zoom meetings they kept in touch on whatsapp.

Details of more group activities to be added.

Watch this space.

Property Use and Cleaning

The PropertyCommittee used materials from Presbytery to develop revised cleaning plans is response to the covid-19 risk. (See PropertyReport202006.)

The buildings were closed for normal worship, Church Group activities, and hirers in accordance with givernment lock-down requirements concerning gatherings of groups.In accordance with government requirements, the worship centre was used to live-stream worship on Sundays.

ChurchCouncil resolved not to re-open the church until it is possible for all worship activities to recommence. More detail at CouncilMinutes20200528 appended item 4.

Community Engagement

The lawns and gardens were used to display to the community that the life of the congregation continues with:

• a field of messages of hope (written on small heart-shaped posters), created by members of the congregation, in the lawn; and later
• a 'spoonville' with characters painted on spoons.

Status Updates

ChurchCouncil updated on how the congregation will operate are provided as necessary in the ChurchBulletin.