Liturgy Excerpt: With Online Worship: Do What You Can Sustain Well

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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What do I commend as both worship consultant and pastor? Here are three bits of advice I’ve come to as I’ve wrestled with that tension.

1. If you have a team and the tools to create top-quality content for regular twenty- to thirty-minute worship service online and to respond to viewers in real-time when the service premieres and to follow up with comments or questions in a timely way later, by all means, do so. People’s schedules are becoming less predictable over time. Many church members, as well as many you could reach with outstanding online service, can remain connected or become connected.

2. Online worship and in-person worship are two different animals. So as you can provide for both, keep that in mind. As a worship consultant, I urge you, don’t even try to make the online service a replica of something you do in person. It may still follow the basic pattern of service of the word in your tradition, but where things are filmed, who participates, and, of course, the length of the sermon or message should be quite different. As a pastor, I encourage you to make the in-person service(s) your priority. Give the online production team the bulk of the responsibility for planning and producing that service. While you certainly received a lot of on-the-job training in video production over the past year, that work is not at the heart of your calling and formation as a minister of word and sacrament among the assembled people of God under your care.

3. If your congregation cannot do both well, prioritize in-person. . .

And quit doing or don’t start doing what you can’t. This past year has been rough on congregations, church leaders, and pastors. The partisan politicization of what should have been simple public health policy has created a corrosive atmosphere. Conflicts have shot through many congregations in this country, often adding literal insult to the injury the pandemic itself has caused so many of us. While there is some comfort in being able to resume in-person worship and many of its familiar practices, I am confident I speak for more than just myself and the congregation I serve that we have maybe only begun the process of healing from this year of many injuries.

Pastors want to say yes to many things we’ve had to say no to for a long time. Just remember to do so with the reality of your situation—both your personal and congregational capacity and the degree of healing you require—firmly in heart and mind. As a worship consultant, I say, do not let what the church down the street is doing pressure your decisions about online and in-person worship. Focus on whether and how your team, if you have one, can do this work well for the long haul.

And as a pastor, I say, if you find what you are currently doing online is not sustainable while you and your congregation move into more congregational activity in the coming months, consider how you can start letting it go.

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.