THUNDER BAY — With in-church services curtailed by the COVID-19 pandemic, members of Thunder Bay's seven United church congregations held a joint worship service online this past weekend.
Nearly 6,000 people logged on, including residents of communities across Canada and the U.S.
Reverend Randy Boyd of Trinity United, the host church, said there were some anxious moments before the service began, but things turned out well in the end.
"The distribution provider that we used experienced an incredible slam of bandwidth usage. When we went to do the pre-stream, we had nothing," Boyd said.
However, the connection was made just in time for the start of the service at 10:30 a.m.
"We did a lot of stuff in the city and beyond the city to make sure people knew the stream would be available," Boyd said.
"We got a lot of appreciative comments," he told Tbnewswatch. "I was looking at the stats, and there were 5,833 views of the service.
Viewers also included people in B.C., Manitoba, southern Ontario, Arkansas, Illinois and Virginia
"Our content provider would have a portal where people from the States could choose where they wanted to go and what stream they wanted to watch. I assume there was some of that as well," Boyd added.
Ministers and lay leaders from all seven local churches participated.
They gathered at Trinity, but practised social-distancing throughout the service.
Music was provided by Thunder Bay's well-known Cosbey family, who also performed in the church as the choir.
Boyd said as long as the authorities continue to allow smaller groups to gather together, the churches hope to continue online services every Sunday.
"We have a skeletal group putting this together, and they are serving the spiritual needs of thousands of people. I would hope that this is seen as a worthwhile and valuable contribution to what's going on" in Canada, he said.
Trinity has the experience and the equipment to host an online service, including multi-camera and multi-microphone connectivity.
Boyd explained that the church regularly streams its own Sunday services.
"It was just a matter of offering it to the other churches who were closing down, and having people from those churches participate, so that it was seen as a city-wide endeavour."
