ROCKY TOP, Tenn. (BP) – If there’s any place in the country one should be able to find a volunteer, it’s Main Street Baptist Church in Rocky Top, Tenn., just north of Knoxville.
Wayne Phillips needed one on Sunday, March 15, 2020. He was preaching for the first time without an audience and required another person in his home study. Phillips’ wife of 40 years, Joan, became that volunteer and de facto camera operator, motioning for him to speak louder on the Sunday when pastors across the country made their first steps into online church.
The weather last weekend forced Phillips and other church leaders to pivot in the same way for Sunday services. There was less fretting over the process this time around, though, as COVID had provided at least a couple of months for most, longer for others, of getting used to delivering the Gospel through a screen.
Some churches didn’t go with that option at all, choosing instead to hold services the previous Thursday or Friday. For those who did go the tech route, the choice seemed to be to record elements of the worship service rather than wait for the live version on Sunday, when power outages could affect the ability to transmit.
March 8, 2020 was Phillips’ 58th birthday and Main Street had seen its biggest crowd in quite some time. “It was an Easter morning-type crowd, and our Sunday School numbers were through the roof,” he said. “The Lord was moving in our church and town.”
Growing reports of the spread of COVID-19 and rumors of a shutdown were spreading, though. That Wednesday, March 11, it became real when practically all major sports leagues discontinued their seasons and the NCAA announced March Madness would be cancelled for the first time in history.
“I put my foot down and didn’t want to stop meeting together,” said Phillips. “But the closer to Sunday we got, cooler heads prevailed. I preached from my desk with my wife filming with a tripod. And God did a good work that day, as three people came to Christ.”
His church’s audio and video team helped with lighting and sound upgrades in the following weeks. This past Sunday looked more like the first one of COVID, scaled down and even with the same phone.
“Being a Baptist, you know we don’t like change,” Phillips laughed.
The act itself didn’t feel quite as strange, though, a little like riding a bike.
“That first Sunday, brother, it was just weird. Didn’t feel right at all,” he said. “But this is the work of the Lord, you know. Use what you got and do the best you can. The Word of God never returns void.”
Preaching through a screen wasn’t new to Larry Robertson, as Hilldale Baptist Church in Clarksville, Tenn., had a television ministry for years. But after the COVID shutdown began, preaching to an empty room prepared him for the same experience last week.
“On the first Sunday of COVID, there were maybe eight or 10 people in the worship center,” he said. We recorded the music, then I would preach at another time. The room itself would be dark, with lights on me.”
To get past the oddity of no audience, no one whose body language or face could tell him how it was landing, he “channeled the mindset that I had a message to communicate.”
The COVID schedule continues to impact some elements of the Hilldale Sunday schedule. In particular, Robertson and staff produce a video on Friday of him preaching that week’s message. The video is played during one of the church’s two 9:45 a.m. services while he is preaching live on another campus.
Why not just livestream to the other campus? Robertson makes the case that the prerecorded video actually rings a stronger connection than a live one.
“I’m preaching to that group, not to another one somewhere else,” he said. “I want them to know I’m addressing them as if I were live.”
The crowd, which typically numbers around 100, notices something else about Robertson’s preaching.
“They say they like Video Larry because he preaches shorter sermons,” he said. “It is a particular dynamic that I can’t explain. I’m preaching from the same notes, telling the same stories, and making the same expositions and applications. But when I’m talking to a crowd, my sermons are about 10 minutes longer.”
Video Larry preached for everyone on Jan. 25. Discussions started in earnest at the previous Tuesday’s staff meeting. On Wednesday night, the music ministry videoed a just-in-case worship set. Robertson recorded his sermon like he does every week, albeit a few days earlier than normal when it’s just for one of the 9:45 services.
The actual decision to cancel gathering in person didn’t take place until Saturday, thanks to “the Clarksville bubble.”
“We’ve gotten burned so many times on a forecast saying we’re going to have ice or snow, just for it to pass around us,” he said. “At that time, the bad weather was beginning, so we made the call. But at that point we had everything finished, edited and good to go.”
Porter Memorial Baptist Church in Lexington, Ky., braced for snowfall predictions of more than a foot last week. The 34-minute worship video produced for Sunday was a little different, including music, prayer, Scripture reading, an abbreviated sermon and Pastor Nick Sandefur joining other ministry staff for a discussion.
A surplus in Porter Memorial’s budget in the fall of 2019 led to the church updating its video capabilities. It proved to be a wise move in March 2020.
“By the time COVID hit, we had a pretty good idea of how to record and stream our services,” said Sandefur.
Church leadership encouraged people to stay home for that first Sunday worship, though others could attend in person if they wanted. They decided after that week to pre-record sermons.
“We just felt like it was a better experience for people,” Sandefur said. “We could edit it for better distribution.”
“Every preacher has to adapt to his situation. We started to understand what translated better online and what would encourage people. [The COVID shutdown] was a unique experience, but we adjusted.”
Sandefur noted something that sets pastors’ heads to nodding.
“There’s a difference between preaching online and in person. The connection’s different. Some things don’t translate and your personality changes a little bit when you’re preaching to a camera, but that’s OK. The Word goes forth.”
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