Many Unitarian Universalist congregations and communities are choosing to livestream their worship services during the pandemic so that members can connect to their faith community at a familiar time.

Creating online worship—whether it's live or recorded—involves a series of learning curves, which means nothing will be perfect, and mistakes will be made. (Forgive yourself!) How do we create online worship that's engaging, sensory-rich, and deeply meaningful?

This webinar was recorded on March 25, 2020.

Webinar Milestones

Here are a some of the benchmarks in this 95-minute conversation:

• 00:30 Dr. Marcia McFee invites participants to populate a word cloud via Mentimeter.
• 14:15 Rev. Erika Hewitt invites participants to light a chalice, perhaps using the WorshipWeb app's chalice function.
• 18:05 Erika introduces Rev. Sarah Gibb Millspaugh (tech host) and Dr. Marcia McFee
• 24:30 Marcia explains why she believes that even recorded worship services should "air" at their usual time
• 25:30 Erika offers a non-religious testimony of why our people might value imperfect, low-tech worship with their own religious communities rather than leave to find more polished, high-tech worship somewhere else.
• 30:00 Marcia describes why "B roll" video of our worship sites can be meaningful
• 36:00 Marcia shows & discusses examples from online worship services she's attended
• 46:20 Marcia addresses concerns about privacy for pastoral concerns during online worship
• 50:00 Erika highlights a source for Covid-related worship material that's now been moved to WorshipLab.
• 1:03:00 Marcia talks about mirror neurons, and how powerfully they can function during online worship experiences.
• 1:06:30 Marcia offers some preaching/reading tips, and then explains why it's important to tell a story instead of writing and reading a story.
• 1:14:00 Marcia describes one way to make symbols and stories more interactive.
• 1:25:00 Erika and Marcia talk about music in online worship, and maintaining its quality for online participants
• 1:30:00 Marcia talks about pastors and worship leaders bringing their vulnerability to worship, and then explains what she means by "metaphoraging."
• 1:33:00 Erika asks participants to join in a closing reading.