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It became clear this year that our tech-support role at worship needed to evolve into three new roles:

  • Backup broadcasting
  • Chat Leader
  • Zoom buttons

By seperating out the various digital ministries in this way we will open things up to people to serve in new ways, and also make each role more managable for those who are already serving. Sharing is caring!

The Backup broadcaster remains the safety net for our broadcaster - having the service slides and music ready to screen share if anything happens to the broadcasters device. Many of our servers are already fulfilling this role and so it is already familiar and hopefully straight forward.

The Chat leader is a new role for someone to welcome people using the chat function, keep up with the comments throughout our gathering so that they are all acknowledged, and farewells those who are saying goodbye in typed words as they leave our space. This is a wonderful new opportunity for someone who perhaps doesn't feel called to lead with their unmuted voice, but engage with others in the community in a more behind the scenes, but also vital and life-giving way.

The Zoom buttons role is an interesting one. It was tough to come up with a name that described this most essential role.

Brainstorming, these are some that came up:

"Host' - that already describes the Zoom function that the person in the role will either need to be logged into, or made co-host by the Host to access the buttons.

"Pilot" - I had in mind an aeroplane pilots role - flying the plane in a technical way so that everyone arrives safely at their desitnation... but that could be confusing.

And a funny one which might give you a laugh... "God mode" - a gaming term which describes when someone has hacked a game so that they have all the admin abilities to influence the landscape, or the programming of the game also came to mind. Perks of having a husband who has introduced me to video games as well as anime, I now know these things! Well this one could be even more confusing, as we gather in the space to worship the one true Triune God, Creator, Redeemer and Sanctifier - not the serving team who are pressing the buttons to help us all do that!

So Zoom Buttons it is...

The role involves:

  • Muting those who may not be able to mute themselves,
  • Keeping an eye on video feeds to protect and safeguard all in the space,
  • Helping the broadcaster, backup broadcaster and chat leader with other functions in the space (E.G. deleting comments in the chat if information is shared by accident or there is something inappropriate)
  • And if there ever was a disruptive device that gained access to our spaces - ensuring that it was reported to Zoom and taken out of the space to avoid harm or scamming.

I do hope that there will be some who are willing to take this role on - it is very important that it is shared so that during the times when Kerrie-Anne or I are not at worship, things can remain safe for all who participate in the 100% lay led space.

Please pray for our new roles as they unfold in the new Church year - we are entering Advent soon which will take us from Year B to Year C of the lectionary cycle. 

I look forward to seeing how this will enable us to grow even deeper in our spiritual practice of exercising our vocations online and enabling one another in the bringing of our talents and gifts to God as offerings of love.

***Visit the Weekly Worship page to see the serving role guides under downloads.

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