St Mary's, Atherstone live streams to 1500 people

The Revd Michael Brandsma and the team at St Mary’s, Atherstone have been streaming their midweek and Sunday services on Facebook and receiving a large number of views.

Since the Covid 19 lockdown started in March, Michael began to use his platform on Facebook as a place to post encouragement and uplift. He would post words of encouragement on his own Facebook page, St Mary’s, Atherstone’s Facebook page and the Atherstone community forum.

Michael has 500 friends on his own Facebook page. St Mary’s has its own closed Facebook group which comprises of members of the congregation and those who requested to join the group. The group has a membership of 380 people. Michael is also a member of the Atherstone Community Forum which has 14,000 members.

The administration team that oversees the Atherstone Community Forum encouraged Michael to begin live streaming his Easter services.

On Palm Sunday, the 5th April, Michael streamed his first service on Facebook to reach out to the congregation and community. His son-in-law arrived in the morning to help set up and Michael had never done anything like this before. Live Facebook streaming was daunting for him. Yet, the service went well and was well received.

The church then streamed all of their Easter services: Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Sunday. The viewing numbers get growing.

After Easter, the church began to stream their regular worship on Facebook – their midweek worship on a Wednesday, their 10.30am Sunday worship as well as introducing a Friday at 12.01pm prayer time.

The services are a variety of liturgical patterns and are led by either Michael, or the church’s Reader, John Stock. They invite various congregation members to participate in readings and prayers. They live stream by using two mobile phones placed on tripods, one streaming to the St Mary Atherstone Facebook page and the other to the Atherstone and Hinterland Forum Facebook page.

The Revd Michael Brandsma live streaming the service. 

Michael says:

“The services have been seen by thousands of people. The mid-week viewings total an average of 1400 to 1600 views and Sunday viewing average approximately 1300 to as many as 2000 on two occasions.

“After one service our Reader, John, walked into the chemist and a shopper unknown to him responded, ‘I have just been watching you on Facebook.’

“Our next step is to develop some way to engage and interact with these viewers on a more personal basis. We are looking at various means at the moment and hopefully this will draw out viewers to respond to further ministry. If anyone has any advice on this please contact me.”

First published on: 5th August 2020
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