Liturgy Excerpt: The Techno Dilemma of Online Worship

The issue of Liturgy entitled “Religion Outside of Religion,” guest-edited by David Farina Turnbloom, raises the question of whether the daily rituals of our lives might be seen as contributing to our religiosity. This is an excerpt from Taylor Burton-Edwards who explores the ins and outs of in-person versus online worship. –– Melinda Quivik

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As a denominational worship consultant for nearly thirteen years, and a freelance consultant since 2018, I’ve witnessed and been part of many conversations (and debates) about online worship. Some of those, including offering the sacraments to viewers watching online rather than gathered physically with their authorized presider, remained—or became more hotly debated—during the pandemic. (For the record, I’m opposed to online communion, and the pandemic didn’t change that). Other worship questions, such as whether worship should be made available to people online at all, however, became no longer debatable, but simply necessary while it was physically unsafe to gather in person.

Now that the extent of the pandemic no longer prohibits in-person gatherings (at least in most parts of the United States), perhaps the more difficult question is whether and for how long the online versions of worship should be continued. And here, I find myself, honestly, in a quandary. And that’s in part because I’m not only a worship consultant: Since early 2020 (and so throughout this pandemic) I’ve also been a working pastor in a small ELCA congregation in South Central Georgia.

The worship consultant side of me cares about quality and potential market reach. Putting a worship service into video form and publishing it on the Internet means that the service is experienced and judged primarily in terms of its watchability. Is the video image clear, at least 30 FPS at 1080p? Is the sound quality consistent (no big differences in sound level from one segment to the next) and at least on par with the best YouTubers out there? Is the content consistently compelling enough to hold attention, with few low or dragging spots that might lead me to decide to swipe away? Is it short enough? Even twenty minutes starts to seem long for content you’re going to view each time it’s posted. And do you have a clear way for real-time engagement with those watching it—at least when it goes live?

Given all of those considerations, the worship consultant side of me has consistently recommended that congregations seriously consider pre-recording their content, carefully editing it, and then posting it rather than live-streaming their online offerings. And I’ve been especially adamant that seeing people in masks who are not singing and maybe not even verbally responding during a worship service is not only not compelling, but a pretty sure way to drive away—rather than draw in—potential newcomers to your services.

The pastor side of me has lived with a very different set of realities. I had no production team to assist me in creating online worship services while we could not meet in person. I had to do them entirely myself. When I started, producing a single twenty- to thirty-minute service would typically take me fourteen hours—on the production side alone—because of the limitations of the software and hardware I had available to me (my 720p webcam and the video editing software that comes with Windows 10). I had no professional cameras, sound equipment, or anything else. . . I was able to get this down to around ten hours. . . And this is for a church I serve part-time.

The rest of this essay is available in the full digital and print editions of Liturgy. All of the essays in Liturgy 36, no.4 are available by personal subscription and through many libraries.

Taylor W. Burton-Edwards, an ELCA minister, chairs the Consultation on Common Texts and serves as secretary of the North American Academy of Liturgy, treasurer of The Liturgical Conference, and as a consultant on worship, theology, and polity for United Methodist Communications.

Taylor W. Burton-Edwards, “Unmute Yourself: How to Know Whether and How to Offer Worship Options,” Liturgy 36, no. 4 (2021): 4–6.