Since March, I’ve noticed five distinct types of online worship services in Christian congregations.
I’ve outlined them below primarily for my academic colleagues whose students would usually attend in-person services for a class assignment. Those of us leading online services may also be interested in how other congregations are approaching their online services.
In making this analysis, I am drawing on what I’ve seen across the spectrum of Christian denominations (everything from Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox, to Mainline, Evangelical, and Historically Black Protestants) and across a range of church sizes and financial resources. I don’t have wide knowledge outside of Christian circles, though several colleagues leading worship at synagogues have described similar types of online worship to me.
5 Types of Online Worship Services
- Pre-recorded services where leaders gather in-person to record together. These are typically recorded in the congregation’s usual worship space.
- Pre-recorded services where service components are recorded separately. These may recorded offsite or in the congregation’s usual worship space at different times by the leaders.
- Livestreamed services where leaders gather in-person (typically in the congregational’s usual worship space) and lead a service with an exclusively online congregation.
- Livestreamed services where leaders gather in-person (typically in the congregational’s usual worship space) and lead a service with both onsite and online congregation.
- Livestreamed services where leaders are offsite. If there are multiple people leading the livestream, they are likely in different locations although leadership may include some family units.
Details about Service Types
- Pre-recorded services may be released for synchronous or asynchronous congregational worship.
- Any of the types can be released across multiple platforms.
- As with pre-recorded services, livestreamed services may include pre-recorded components such as filmed messages from congregational members or other forms of aural and/or visual togethers like multi-track vocal recordings and virtual choir videos.
- Congregations are often able to access a recorded livestream after a given service, though services conducted via a video conference call are less likely to be available afterwards.
- Some services are situated in between Types 4 and 5, where family members of leaders are present as a subset of the congregation, but the service is not open to other onsite congregants.
Congregational Participation
Many congregations use online tools to interact with each other during a service.
In synchronous services, they may interact with comment threads or use audio-visual and/or chat interaction on a video conference call. In asynchronous services, they may also use comment streams.
Many congregations use online means of communication that are adjacent to, but distinct from, the service, such as a post-service “coffee hour” hosted on a video conference call.
Considerations
Influences on a congregation’s choice between these types include:
- theological beliefs (especially about the nature of corporate worship, whether the service has a Eucharistic element, and the congregation’s Eucharistic beliefs)
- financial resources
- technological nimbleness of staff and/or volunteers creating online services
- what kinds of technology for online services the congregation had in place prior to the pandemic
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