The Churches and the Cathedral have a time-proven communication technology of prayer. Prayer and attentiveness around prayer are obviously the mainstay of religious communication.
Current public protocols allow for walks between 6 AM and 7 PM within 10 kilometers of our places of residence. Perhaps current social-distancing measures could allow mini-gatherings of church members in physical spaces in this way for now.
Initially, evening centering prayer at the American Church would proceed as follows. The leader would distribute the liturgy and ask everyone to follow it on Thursdays at 7 PM. We all have clocks and it worked.
Telephones are also an option, as is email.
At the time of this writing, the majority of congregants have become comfortable with video-conferencing software. Churches are able to successfully coordinate meetings wherein each participant (or couple) is behind one computer, telephone or tablet, with one "Brady-Bunch"-type square. The rest of this section details organizational and technical criteria applicable to successful modern-day use of technology in welcoming congregants into a virtual space for any purpose: worship, discussion groups and/or individual conferences with clergy. Although this section is mainly concerned with fully-virtual communication, these same criteria will be used in considering hybrid physical and virtual meetings.
Here is a pragmatic framework for consideration of synchronous communication technologies. There is a technical consideration and an organization consideration. The organizational consideration has three categories: welcome, security and comfort. The technical consideration has four bases: audio in, audio out, video in and video out. I find these categorizations useful in defining the effectiveness of any communication setup.
Let's first consider technology. A typical TV has video in and audio in. The video in is the screen. The audio in is the speakers on the TV. Most laptops have a webcam and a microphone. The webcam provides video out. The microphone provides audio out. A laptop usually has a screen and speakers that can also provide audio and video in. Another way to look at this is to consider video in as seeing, video out as being seen, audio in as hearing and audio out as being heard. My goal here is to materialize those distant present and those present in the distant space.
Now let's consider human relationships. Welcome is usually the first impression any guest would get from coming to a space. The impression is actually constructed from a host of preparations and intentions. Usually, a practice of addressing the visitor by name within a very short time of arrival goes a long way. Comfort takes over for welcome after the first impression. Personally, I try to solicit feedback as directly as I can and I try to be attentive to everyone present. Labeling what is uncomfortable can be liberating. Activating video and audio is also reassuring to all those present. This is both comfort and security. Security has to deal more with the parameters of the meeting. One important aspect, for example, is knowing if the meeting will be recorded or not. There is also the question of managing invitations responsibly.
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