IN OUR CONGREGATIONS
Quarantine sparks creative celebrations
W
e had a particularly interesting circumstance this year as it relates to the COVID-19 pandemic and quarantine. We have been live-streaming our Sunday services on Facebook for quite some time, as well as services in church, so the knowledge of how to do that was an advantage as far as “what do we do now” once the doors were shut. Since mid-March our church has been closed to in-person worship because of the virus, so we stormed ahead online, armed with our skills with MEVO (a video streaming technology) and a brand new Music Director in the person of Colin Welford (who conducted at the English National Ballet and Royal Opera House, directed the music for “Lion King” on Broadway for six years as well as all its international shows, “Hamilton” in Chicago, etc. No small talent and a world-class organist).
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Colin records his more difficult organ pieces for separate (and notated, often funny) videos online. Pastor Dawn does weekly podcasts on Facebook, and her husband (Mr. Bob as the kids call him) reads Thomas the Tank Engine stories online weekly. So far, so good…. but Pastor Dawn Volpe’s anniversary of her 35th year of ordination and her 65th birthday lay ahead in July. What to do? She was very stoic about it—“We’ll celebrate when we can all get together again”—but the Joint Board didn’t want to let it go at that. With the help of the Joint Board, Colin and office staff, a very covert operation was set afoot. We even set up a separate email account from “Pastor Iverson” (our Ephraim founder) so that all communications could take place beyond the nose of our pastor. There were meetings off-site, communications with old mentors and friends, family and members/friends of the congregation and musical guests to keep everyone apprised of our progress. Because of the limitations of the number of people one can have in an indoor space when there’s a pandemic taking place, it took hours to figure out the logistics of moving people in and out of the church at the proper time (with 17 masked participants, which included seven musicians and their sometimeslarge instruments). The Moravian
