Sermon Review Thread

[Paidiske]

Oh, thanks! I thought people had more or less given up on this thread.

I think only your congregation can tell you if you hit the right tone or not.

It's been a very strange season not preaching. I've been doing short reflections while live-streaming morning prayer, but not full sermons. I've missed the discipline of preparing them, and the connections with people in preaching and hearing their thoughts and responses.

 

[The Liturgist]

Oh, thanks! I thought people had more or less given up on this thread.

I think only your congregation can tell you if you hit the right tone or not.

It's been a very strange season not preaching. I've been doing short reflections while live-streaming morning prayer, but not full sermons. I've missed the discipline of preparing them, and the connections with people in preaching and hearing their thoughts and responses.

Have you been live streaming Morning Prayer on YouTube? I would love to subscribe to your channel if you wanted to post or PM it.

I have been considering live streaming our services as well.

 

[The Liturgist]

By the way, if there was a lapse in this thread @Paidiske it was probably my fault; while I didn’t give up on this thread; rather, after posting it, I had the flu, and then in January had a difficult month, and then Coronavirus happened. I would really love to see this thread come back to life now that church services in the US and other countries are resuming. This thread needs to be nourished a bit so that it can attain “critical mass” and then continue on its own (we might also consider the format; perhaps some clergy are afraid to participate given the current model, because of a fear of their sermons being harshly criticized, so perhaps we should consider making this a “Share your sermon” thread, with members who desire professional feedback from other ministers encouraged to request that in their posts?)

@bekkilyn - are you “back in business” yet?

 

[Paidiske]

Have you been live streaming Morning Prayer on YouTube? I would love to subscribe to your channel if you wanted to post or PM it.

I have been considering live streaming our services as well.

Livestreaming on FB. St. Faith's, Burwood I think that link for the parish page should work.

It's been a very interesting experiment; I hadn't done anything like that before, but the response has been very positive, and we've been reaching people with whom we had no previous connection.

 

[The Liturgist]

Livestreaming on FB. St. Faith's, Burwood I think that link for the parish page should work.

It's been a very interesting experiment; I hadn't done anything like that before, but the response has been very positive, and we've been reaching people with whom we had no previous connection.

I think based on the positive experience you ought to consider simulcasting your livestream onto YouTube and having a YouTube channel where people can watch your videos. YouTube is interestingly enough the no. 1 streaming platform, with the most paid subscribers, and more overall users than Netflix, Amazon, and the rest combined.

 

[Paidiske]

We're recording and putting the recordings on YouTube, because the problem we had with livestreaming to YouTube was that once the livestream is over you can't watch it later. Unlike FB where if you're not able to watch at the time, you can watch at a time that suits you.

(At least, my tech person tells me that was what was happening... I am struggling with the tech side of all of this).

 

[The Liturgist]

We're recording and putting the recordings on YouTube, because the problem we had with livestreaming to YouTube was that once the livestream is over you can't watch it later. Unlike FB where if you're not able to watch at the time, you can watch at a time that suits you.

(At least, my tech person tells me that was what was happening... I am struggling with the tech side of all of this).

Your tech guy was mistaken on these points; by default a YouTube livestream becomes a normal video once it completes. But at least he is getting the work done.

 

[Paidiske]

That's weird... we definitely did a livestream that disappeared.

But, given he's
a) a volunteer,
b) not connected to my parish but giving me his time and talents because he's my husband,

and also given that I'm leaving, I'm inclined to let this one go.

 

[The Liturgist]

That's weird... we definitely did a livestream that disappeared.

But, given he's
a) a volunteer,
b) not connected to my parish but giving me his time and talents because he's my husband,

and also given that I'm leaving, I'm inclined to let this one go.

Indeed; he made a minor error there, but as I said in my prior post, since he’s getting the job done, and also especially since he is a volunteer and your husband, its not something I personally would, if I were in your position, even remotely considering raising a fuss over. I mean, I myself make technical mistakes sometimes; in April I accidentally deleted much of the content on a private Minecraft server I run for some friends, a mistake which would have been impossible in my production environments but which was hugely embarassing.

It is also a best practice to not actually livestream if you can avoid it, but rather pre-record and carefully edit so as to avoid the appearance of editing.

 

[Paidiske]

No, the live streaming is really important, because it allows interaction between me and the people commenting (for example, incorporating their requests into the prayers).

 

[bekkilyn]

@bekkilyn - are you “back in business” yet?

Yep, been doing outdoor services with my larger congregation for the past couple or three weeks and just had an indoor service with the smaller congregation this Sunday as it is small enough for them to spread out and keep safe distancing. (And it was really hot outside, so they kind of all just moved inside before I even got there. )

I also created a public facebook page and posting written messages there each week along with the weekly scripture passages and some songs/hymns. I thought about doing the Facebook live thing, but there are so many that do not have internet access at home that at least with the written messages, someone could get printouts over to them. I plan to still use the page even when/if things go back to "normal".

A lot of my focus these past weeks was to use this time of quarantine as an opportunity for spiritual discipline and practice.

 

[The Liturgist]

No, the live streaming is really important, because it allows interaction between me and the people commenting (for example, incorporating their requests into the prayers).

Ah yes, indeed, that’s a good point. If you wanted to be super-slick, you could pre-record certain invariant parts of the liturgy and seamlessly blend them into the livestream. But that might not work for you, you perhaps might want interaction throughout. I am sending you a PM with links to some professional books on YouTube your husband might enjoy.

 

[Paidiske]

No, "super-slick" is far more than I aspire to at the moment!

And again, I'm leaving the parish in just over a week, so now is probably not the time to go messing around with new things for them.

 

[The Liturgist]

No, "super-slick" is far more than I aspire to at the moment!

And again, I'm leaving the parish in just over a week, so now is probably not the time to go messing around with new things for them.

Oh, your still at that parish - I thought you were at the new one. You’ve got to forgive me, sometimes I lose track of things.

 

[Paidiske]

Eleven more days (but who's counting?) at the current parish, then a long break, then starting in the new parish sometime late October-early November. (The bishop is being frustratingly difficult to pin down about an exact start date!)