The Experience of Hybrid Worship (So Far)

by Howard Nelson and Claire Howard
Poplar Ridge Meeting

When the Covid-19 pandemic arrived, Poplar Ridge Monthly Meeting was fortunate to have technologically skilled people among us who were generous with their time. One in particular kept us afloat, setting up Zoom meetings week after week, month after month.  Suddenly we were having meeting for worship via Zoom, and we were sitting at home looking at our meeting Friends on screens, in little boxes, as they sat in their homes staring back. The pandemic stretched out Time, and, along with the online lifestyle, it also did radical things to Space. Collapsed it, vanquished it—while at the same time there was the reality of being distanced. Suddenly we were a group that included people in different states, other countries.  A great thing had happened:  Even those who could not attend meeting, could attend meeting!  This was a sea-change. We got used to it, sort of.

Eventually, and with much deliberation and discernment, we felt that in-person gathering was once again feasible, with safety precautions (masks, distancing, ventilation, vaccination), and a limited number of Friends filtered back into the meeting house. But of course, remote attendance continued. We had adopted a new mode of gathering; we had morphed (some might say evolved) into a hybrid meeting. Month by month, discussions were had about safety issues, but also logistical/technological issues. A meeting which in the not very distant past had turned down a request to use video equipment at a wedding (it had something to do with Simplicity) was now talking about camera angles and what kind of microphone to buy. 

How do we integrate those on Zoom into worship? Does the fact of being on camera have any effect on the experience of worship—both for those at home and those sitting in the benches?  Does it mean anything to be physically present in a place anymore?  Is silence different online? These were some of the questions that were faced.

One of us, Claire, says: Though I am grateful that we could continue meeting for worship through the pandemic, there has been much to adjust to and accept as necessary disappointments. Like foregoing our hymn singing together, being unable to see one another’s faces, having difficulty hearing messages delivered from beneath a mask, and losing the simplicity and beauty of our meeting room to microphones, wires, laptops and the like. But after months of not meeting in person and only worshipping on Zoom, those of us who have returned to the meeting house are so thankful to be together again. We are truly a blended meeting, with half still on Zoom and half coming in person. A year ago we endured a conflict over music; as one of the pianists at Poplar Ridge I declined to play because I felt the quality of sound on Zoom was so poor. Objections to this dearth of meditative piano music at our meetings for worship, however, did lead us to experimentation with technical equipment. At present we are using a mic at the podium for the speaker, a mic perched on a stool in the middle of the room for those who speak from the pews, a laptop operated by any one of our tech wizards, and a pre-amplifier. And we three pianists are playing again! Our meeting is committed to this new blended way of being, and I imagine this momentous change will endure beyond the current pandemic.

The other of us, Howard, adds: My wife and I raised our kids without TV in the house. We thought time spent sitting in front of screens wouldn’t be good for them—or for us either, for that matter. How quaint that seems now.  Of course, how the screen is used makes a difference, and what the content coming through it is. But when someone suggested installing a large screen in the meeting house, perhaps on the front wall, as a way of bringing the online attenders in, I recoiled at the idea. I love our blank walls, free of religious imagery, and I’d like them to remain free of screens. At present, we have a little camera perched on the piano, beaming the people in the meeting house out, and a computer behind the piano, where the Zoom attenders are sitting, so to speak. They can hear (usually) what is said in the meeting house, and the people in the benches can hear them when they are moved to speak. I notice that Claire used the word “experimentation.” Early Quakers liked to use the word “experiments” to describe what they were doing. And I will use that word too. We are experimenting with hybrid worship. It’s not perfect, but imperfection (I’m not sure this is a Quakerly thought) is part of life, and my sense is that it is going… pretty well.