I want to do three things:
- Share some of my own experiences with house church via group video chat.
- Invite you to share, if you have experience with virtual house church gatherings, by commenting at the end of the post.
- Offer a form here where you can sign up if you want to find others who are interested in doing house church via group video chat. I make no promises that I will be able to connect you with others, but I will try. You can also use the same form if you already have your own group members but want some additional technical or practical help in doing a virtual house church
I have been meeting now with two different virtual groups and we are all learning.
Here are my thoughts so far.
I recommend 5 or 6 people as the maximum size. Moving conversation from one to the next takes some time and larger groups may become tedious. If you already have a larger group, you may want to divide it into two groups.
It is more important than ever to know the purpose of the group so that everyone has the same expectations and are on the same page. Is the group primarily to share in fellowship and be a place of prayer, care, and support for one another? Or is it primarily to provide an opportunity for discovery of the word of God together? Or is it primarily to be a base for planning and carrying out missions, works of compassion, and discipleship with an outward focus? Or a balance of all three?
Assuming that the modus operandi of the group is that all participate, it is important that there is a good facilitator who keeps the conversation moving, does not let one person dominate, and invites conversation from those who would, otherwise, remain quiet. The facilitator (who can rotate among the group, by the way), should be responsible to carry out the purpose of the group as mentioned in the previous paragraph.
In regards to technology, I have experience with Zoom, GoToMeeting, Google Hangouts, and Skype. There are pros and cons to each and there are others, but they all serve the basic purpose of getting you face-to-face virtually with others.
If you have been doing or just starting a virtual house church group yourself, please do use the comments section to share:
- What technology are you using?
- Are you incorporating worship? If so, how?
- What are some of the challenges you have seen?
- Benefits?
- Anything else that might be helpful to the rest of us?
Finally, as I mentioned already, I will try to assist you if you want to connect virtually with others and do not have a group. OR, if you have a group of people but could use a little encouragement on how to get started. Either way, you can communicate with me here and I will do my best.
Comments
7 responses to “Virtual House Church”
Hi Roger. Always good to get your Simple Church Journal.
We started up a house church with two families in Broadview Heights, Ohio near Cleveland last December. The Lord was really beginning to move in our midst when Covid hit.
We’ve gone virtual. We use Zoom. We pay for the subscription so that we can stay on line longer than 40 minutes. It’s a small monthly fee. We can share our screens with Zoom so we will worship together with YouTube videos. You need to lip sink the words, however, because if you sing, Zoom thinks your talking and cuts off the other audios which may cut off the music from the YouTube.
We have been doing some training and equipping in personal evangelism and we can share a PowerPoint presentation for this as well. That has worked pretty well.
We had just begun to share a meal together at our gatherings and share communion during that time. We haven’t tried to do that virtually yet. I guess we could but that just doesn’t seem right yet. The whole thing seems a little weird yet but we’re getting more and more used to it. The other family has 2 kids, 14 and 11, who join us. They seem much better at this than we are!!
Outreach projects have been a little hard to navigate. We are still reaching out to neighbors and friends, coworkers, but contact is limited. We are funding a benevolence fund that is going to people who have been hit hard by this thing, losing jobs, etc. We have a friend who is with Alpha. We are going to be trained in this virtually and see if we could maybe start an Alpha outreach virtually in the near future.
We are certainly experiencing a paradigm shift, but I think we’re weathering the storm a lot better than my traditional pastor friends!! It’s a little sad to me to see these friends focus more on getting their sermons online and reminding people to continue to give!!!!
Anyway, love ya brother, keep up the good work!!!
Roger, As always I too enjoy getting your posts! We have used zoom the past couple of weeks and my expereince has been that its the easiest for folks new to video confernce technology.
I think all your tips are spot on. I like the idea of designating a focus for the time. Next week we have designated the time to for discussing 1 Peter. We also have a “Group Me” group that we used pre-COVID19 that seems to work well for conversation throughout the week.
I really love your form for helping connect up others who are interested. I may copy that idea for our website as well. I’m happy to help you from Kentucky the best that i can if you need help connect people to groups. I think it would be great if folks could join a virtual house church that had the potential to meet up in person when this is over.
I have shared several articls and posts recently at http://www.simplechurchalliance.com that possibly could be a help as well. We are going to host a book discussion on the book “Finding Church” by Wayne Jacobsen in a few weeks as well. Thanks Roger. I really hope that I can visit with you in person/phone more in future. Your conversation with me many years ago was a real blessing and encouragement to me when I was getting started with all this.
Thanks for this, Roger. We are using Zoom, and we sent these tips for our group this week, especially, about how to share music.
MUSIC: Yes, we CAN play worship music and sing along at home. The trick is for the host (or anyone who is sharing) to click a certain setting when sharing your screen.
First Option:
1. Click “Share Screen” and then in the lower left, click “Share computer sound”. (You can also click “Optimize screen sharing for video clip” if you want the video to take over the whole screen).
2. You will then be sharing your screen and everyone will see everything on your screen.
3. Go to your selected YouTube link. (ones without commercials if possible, or keep the volume low until the commercial is over?)
4. Play video/music. Right before starting the music video, everyone need to mute their audio. Why? Because if each of us sings along without muting, we hear each other’s audio as delayed and out of sync with the music. But if we mute, we hear the music through our own system’s speakers. When the song is over, we unmute.
Easier Option? (At least until everyone is comfortable with this Zoom functionality.)
1. Send me YouTube links before Saturday for any digital music you MIGHT wish to share at house church. I will save all those video links to a list in my YouTube account. If you wish to share one in worship, let me know and I’ll share play it as meeting host. I have a few extra controls as host, and it’s easy for me to Mute All and then Unmute All.
2. If you think of a song that isn’t on the potential play list, you can put the link in the chat window and I can quickly go there, OR you can tell us the name, and I can search for it in YouTube on the fly.
3. If you can’t find a YouTube link for a song, I might have it as audio only through Amazon Prime Music. Let me know and I can look for it and add it to a playlist.
RENAMING: When you log in, your “participant name” may be only the device name (like “iPhone 2”). From the Zoom Room click on the “Participants” icon at the bottom of the window. In the window, click the “Rename” button for your participant identity. Enter your new name and click OK. (You can also check “Remember my name for future meetings” before clicking OK)
CHAT: You can send messages to the whole group. The Chat window comes in handy if you need to send a message if your audio isn’t working, or you don’t want to interrupt someone by want to ask a question or add something, or give encouragement. If we are mostly muting, unmuting and speaking, the Chat window is less important. Also, people need to set their view to open the Chat window or they won’t see your message. The larger the group, the more helpful the Chat window. For some types of activities, it may be helpful for everyone to type in their feedback simultaneously, and then everyone can see it and talk about it as a group.
SOUND QUALITY: It is probably best to use one device per household to avoid audio feedback. If you are a single person on a device, earbuds/headsets will help block background noise.
LIGHTING: Please try to find a laptop/camera placement and a lighting set up to optimize the video.
FREE TRAINING: https://www.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Qkc7KpkNSFOdlTwpZkGFlQ?zcid=1664&zcid=1675
Description: Ready to start using Zoom, but need some help? Drop-in for our daily (Mon-Fri) quick starts! A Zoom expert will take you through a 30-minute high-level tour of Zoom and cover the basics to get you up and running. It’s as simple as logging in, scheduling a meeting, and finding the controls. Start Zooming today! Stick around to get all your burning questions answered through live Q&A!
People can also list their house church on http://www.housechurchconnect.com and put a comment in the description to let people know they are still meeting virtually. It’s very easy to edit later, when that changes to in person meetings.
Our fellowship had our second Virtual meeting last night. We were able to see 2 couples who are still in FL for the season and coming back as soon as the coast is clear. But, it was a tremendous time and it truly felt like we were all in the same room together. We had a great time of sharing what’s happening in each of our hearts personally which is always a time to be transparent and prayerful about each person. Our Fellowship. We had 12 of us on. It was a very fun and interactive time with all of us including a new couple that fit right in. Our normal size is 16 includimng the new couple and I think we could have easily handled everyone.
Our format after prayer and sharing/check-in can be our reading and discussion of the scripture in a book we are working through chapter/section by section with some facilitating and everyone freely sharing what The Lord has impressed upon them. The focus is Jesus with us in the center of every gathering. Often before the discussion begins there may a short teaching on something The Lord has impressed upon a member who has the gift of teaching which may be an introduction to the passages or any other teaching that is revelant. We will share some music and singing occasionally and communion often.
We use Zoom with the “gallery view” and this seems to work really well. It’s beewn easy for everyone to connect and everything is clear with few lags on the web reception. I can see this being a tremendous tool to pull in people as The Lord connects us. We have a one on one felloeship tonight with some friends who we love and we are excited about growing in this.
Blessings to you All and thanks Roger!
Hi everyone, my name is Inemesit Emmanuel.I reside in Abuja, Nigeria. Are you still conducting services online? I have been desiring to fellowship in a house church. Unfortunately, I have not been able to locate any close to where I live. I am not comfortable fellowshiping with other Christians in the organised church environment.
Since you are on the continent of Africa, you might be interested in this training that we can offer you: https://matt28movements.com/africa/dmmbasics