When I, along with so many other unsuspecting pastors across the world, made my debut as a TV preacher in March, I assumed that live stream worship would be the same as in-person worship. I assumed that we’d work our way through the order of worship as usual and create the “Sanctuary Experience” in the living rooms of members. What I quickly learned was that live stream worship is not the same as gathering together in the sanctuary. Corporate responses feel lonely without the chorus of voices from the pews; preaching to an empty sanctuary feels like dress rehearsal for a final performance that never comes; and, singing hymns reminds me of just how much I need a choir if my noise is to be joyful. I’m sure you have your own list of things that remind you why live stream worship is not the same as our in-person worship.

Preparing for live stream worship is also different than preparing for an in-person service. Whereas pre-pandemic, live stream worship was a chance for people to participate in the “Sanctuary Experience” from afar, pandemic live stream worship is something different. No one is in the sanctuary and the congregation is gathered from far and wide. The fact that the congregation is gathered on living room couches, around breakfast tables, or wearing PJs with coffee in-hand has become a marker of our worship. For congregations that had live stream worship pre-pandemic, PJ-clad, couch-dwelling worshipers would have been the exception to the sanctuary-going worshipers and now it is the rule. Parents have likely realized how hard it is to keep children attentive to the screen when the lure of toys and phones are just within reach. Any fellow musically-challenged worshipers may experience hymns more like an indictment of lacking talent instead of a moment of communal joy. The worn-out and over-scheduled may find that the basket of laundry just out of reach or the overflowing to-do list taunt you from a distance the entire service. It’s hard to worship at home. It’s hard to tune out everything that you’d be physically removed from if we were in the sanctuary. An hour of worship is experienced differently at home than it is in the sanctuary.

I say all of this because you may have noticed some changes in our worship service and you may notice changes in the weeks to come. Live stream worship is not the same as in-person worship and we’re adjusting parts of worship to acknowledge this. The theological and liturgical integrity of our worship service is the most important priority which means that the goal of any change we make is not change for the sake of change. Instead, the intent of any change made is to acknowledge and respond to the fact that how we gather on Sunday mornings has changed. It is important to me that we have a robust Sunday worship service that also accounts for the fact that at home attention spans are shorter, singing is harder, and the experience is simply not the same. You will notice that worship services are less than an hour – that’s intentional! The hope is that this enables everyone to commit to worshiping for the entire service. We will continue to experiment with the corporate responses whether they be spoken or sung.

Additionally, you’ll notice changes in the look of our live stream along with the fact that we've begun streaming via YouTube instead of Facebook. Thanks to your generous stewardship and to the Property and Admin Committees, we’ve upgraded our tools for Sunday morning live streaming with a camera and software that enhance our capabilities. Your staff is working hard to learn the new skills required to manage this new equipment (like how to have the spoken responses appear at the bottom of the screen!). We are learning as fast as we can, but please know that we intend to adjust and improve as we go along. When we don’t get it right, please know that we will keep working to improve. If you searched for the worship video after the live stream aired, you may have had trouble finding it on our YouTube page. We are still learning, but we've fixed that by adding a section at the top of our page titled "Worship Services." In the future, all Sunday morning videos will be posted there after the service has aired. And, we recognize that Facebook has allowed for comments and points of connection with one another during the service and that was lost during yesterday's service. We are aware of this and ask for your patience while we look at different options about how to use Facebook with this new technology.

It is hard to plan and lead worship for a community that I haven’t yet gathered with, so I ask for your patience and your grace as we worship in this wilderness together. I want to end by acknowledging how grateful I am for the ways that technology enables us to share the gift of the Northridge community far beyond our neighborhood and our city. This is a special place and I hope you'll consider inviting a friend to tune in to worship in the weeks to come so you can share this community with others.

I am thrilled to welcome my friend and colleague, The Rev. Matthew Ruffner, Senior Pastor of Preston Hollow Presbyterian Church, as our preacher this Sunday. We will finish our sermon series Lessons from the Wilderness with the story of Jacob wrestling in the night.

You can read Genesis 32:22-31 in preparation for Sunday’s service.

*See the message above for more information about our Sunday worship services.

Moderator: Mary Marcotte

Vice Moderator: Linda Hale Buchanan

Acting Secretary: Cathey Hundley

Treasurer: Sandy Barron

Personal Faith and Family Life: Pam Barker

Christian Community Action: Mary Zentmeyer

Presbyterian Women in Northridge will begin a new Bible Study in September and we can't wait to get started! Our meetings may not be in homes or at Northridge, but we will find a way to discuss the topic of this year’s study which is appropriate for times such as this. Into the Light, Finding Hope through Prayers of Lament, by Lynn Miller, is a study that reminds us of where lament is found in the Old and New Testaments.

Thanks to your generosity, Northridge has been able to maintain our commitments to mission partners both locally and globally, adapt to virtual worship, and find innovative ways to be the church in these unprecedented times.

Our ministries only continue because of your financial contributions.

To make a contribution to our ministries, you may click the button to the right or mail a check to the church.

6920 Bob-O-Link Drive

Dallas, TX 75214

To stay up-to-date, visit this link and click “Subscribe.”