In many ways, our daily lives look different this summer than they did a few months ago, and mine is no exception. Here are a few scenes of your pastor in action over the past couple weeks:
- Location: couch. The pastor holds up a small piece of fabric to the face of a stuffed mouse to see how much she needs to sew it a mask. 30 Rock is playing on her laptop.
- Location: church, exterior. With her phone in one hand and a newly-masked mouse in the other, the pastor scouts for photo opportunities for the ongoing series “The Adventures of Church Mouse.”
- Location: craft room/worship studio. The pastor paints her nails while listening to a webinar on the topic of copyright law for churches.
- Location: living room. The pastor frowns while repeatedly adjusting the placements of lights and her camera before live-streaming Bible study.
- Location: back porch. The pastor sits outside in 80 degree sunshine while reading a book called “Preaching the Women of the Old Testament.”
- Location: living room. The pastor is virtually sharing her computer screen with a seminary friend over zoom. They cannot figure out why the homepage of the church website suddenly ceased to exist overnight, but nevertheless, all that remains is an error message. He walks her through the process of creating a new one. She is incredibly grateful that there have been no issues with any of the other pages because while her friend might currently be studying coding, she has no formal training in it and has been learning it on the fly.
- Location: craft room/worship studio. After ending the zoom call for virtual coffee hour, the pastor pulls her sermon back on screen and records an audio file of it. She uploads it to the website, then links it to the day’s entry on the index of online services on the “COVID-19” page as well as within the day’s “worship at home” page.
- Location: couch. While the pastor is on a phone call with a member, the cat decides that she must make her opinions known. “Hi, Gingersnap,” the church member laughs.
- Location: kitchen. Having given up on falling back asleep, the pastor kneads bagel dough in the early hours of the morning while listening to a podcast in which two of her peers discuss ways to personalize online worship.
- Location: craft room/worship studio. The pastor flips through multiple hymnals to find pieces that thematically connect to the scripture readings, that she feels confident leading a cappella, and that are in the public domain.
- Location: sanctuary. The pastor balances a stool on a pew to film a few minutes’ footage of a candle burning in one of the stained glass windows. The camera angle is odd, so she props up one side of her laptop with a friendship register. Later she will attach this video to an audio recording of the week’s organ prelude.
- Location: street. While on a walk, the pastor waves to three different Peoples.
- Location: craft room/worship studio. The pastor sits at her desk, eating dinner while creating graphics to use in Sunday’s worship service.
- Location: living room. Having just been informed that a church member has just acquired a puppy, she immediately texts a request for pictures. This is clearly vital content for the weekly newsletter!