As schools are making decisions about returning to class in person or virtually, we would like to get a feel from the congregation to make an informed discussion on the Worship Committee and Session about the future of our worship service.

Our current format is to record on Friday afternoons (now at 1:00, but may move to 4:00 based on whether Shaun will have to be in person at North Hills even if teaching virtually).  We invite members to join us sitting in the back of the sanctuary, socially distanced, wearing masks.  We have hand sanitizer and wipes available at the door, as well as a bulletin that includes all responses, scriptures, and hymn lyrics so that Bibles and hymnals don't need to be touched.  Members are encouraged to participate in the responses, but to refrain from singing due to the amount of aerosol particles that spread.

After we record, Shaun takes the video, edits it to add in all responses and hymn lyrics, posts to YouTube, Facebook, and the website, then emails the link out Sunday morning along with the PDF of the bulletin. This process can take anywhere between 3-6 hours depending on whether there were issues recording that need to be fixed, if there are extra parts of the service (like communion), and assuming there are no problems in the upload process to YouTube.

The new Mevo camera will arrive in the coming week, allowing us to broadcast and live stream our worship.  If we did that at our regular worship time of 11:00 on Sunday mornings with the sanctuary open for in person worship (still masked and socially distanced), the edited videos we currently post would not be possible as we don't have the ability to add lyrics or edit in real time as the service is taking place.  Shaun could still edit it after the fact, but it wouldn't be available until Monday morning. (Churches who are able to do that real time editing typically have a crew that runs audio/video from computers during their services.  They preload all of the graphics ahead of time and pop them on screen like when you watch a news broadcast.  We don't have that!)

Currently, we've had at most 5 attend a Friday recording session, while the majority of the congregation watches online at their convenience.  Some also are able to watch on their TVs using the voice remote to open the YouTube app through Comcast.

As the worship committee and Session begin to discuss how to move forward, we'd like to know realistically how many members would actually attend an in person Sunday morning service, or if our current format is working until we are safe enough to go back to the closest form of regular worship we can in this uncertain time.

Please complete the following brief survey.  You can remain anonymous and at no point need to provide contact information or an email.  The results of this will be incredibly beneficial in our decision making for the safety of our congregation.

Thank you for your time and commitment to the life and ministry of the First Presbyterian Church of Edgewood.