CANCELED: Crafting Sacred Connections: The Art of Hybrid Worship

When we hold our meeting for worship in both our meetinghouse and on Zoom, it allows a whole new level of accessibility for people who can’t come to the meetinghouse for whatever reason. It’s God calling us to make space in new ways. We call it “hybrid” or “blended” worship, and we call the work of holding these spaces together “tech host,” or “Zoom host,” or something else that emphasizes the “tech”. But the work is really care of worship with attention to connection. The work is challenging, pushing us out of our comfort zone whether that comfort zone is the tech part or the worship part. It’s a burn-out job when there’s only one or two people doing it, and it takes a team of people who can support each other when it gets hard, teach each other the tips and tricks, and pray for each other to be faithful. This workshop is for tech teams (including teams of one who want to grow larger) to come together, teach each other about how to hold that connection, share what works and what doesn’t, and bring home new energy and inspiration for supporting hybrid worship.

David Coletta: As a teenager in the late 1970s, David came to Quakers through the New England Yearly Meeting Young Friends program, and volunteered as staff for another decade. Completing a first career in technology and yearning to focus on people rather than machines, he discovered that the pandemic created the ideal conditions for him to find that work. David’s leading is to serve Quaker meetings and organizations by exploring faithful use of technology that supports worship and community. David has served NEYM as the tech team lead for annual sessions for the past three years, and has a ministry under the care of Fresh Pond Monthly Meeting, Cambridge, Mass. David lives in Dorchester, Mass.