Best Practices for Learning and Gathering Online

Dear Trinity friends,  

 

It’s hard to believe that a month has now passed since our first forays into Worship-From-Home and using Zoom for formation and community gatherings. Since then, we’ve been so glad to have seen many familiar Trinity faces on our screens. We’ve loved hearing your stories of connection in these days – worshipping via speakerphone with those who don’t have computer access, seeing old friends and making new ones in comment threads and the chat box – and, by God’s grace, we hope and trust that these happy moments will continue. 

 

Our parish covenant states that "We promise, as twenty-first century Christians, to be thoughtful in our use of electronic technologies and media, recognizing that we learn more from each other when we are gathered together." As so much of our life together has shifted online in recent weeks, we’ve all been learning a new set of norms, vocabulary, and ways of being together on these platforms. 

 

As one of your Trinity "Zoommanders" (our playful title for hosts of our Zoom events), I write to share some guidelines into which we’ve settled over the past few weeks. We share these with the hope that they will be helpful and clarifying, and we thank you for your willingness to learn and adapt as we continue discovering what Being Trinity Church looks like in this digital realm. 

 

• Just as we would leave the doors to Copley Square open to the public, we also want our worship and program offerings to be accessible to the widest possible audience. We will continue to make Zoom links available publicly whenever possible. Please take heart that we Zoommanders and fellow staff monitor participants and adjust the meeting settings to balance security and ease of communication. 

• We are finding the "Raise Hand" function helpful as we facilitate our Zoom gatherings. Because not all participants may be visible on a single screen at the same time, we cannot always see those who physically raise their hand within their video feed. Hoping to allow for as many different voices to participate as possible, we encourage everyone to use this feature on Zoom. 

• Our safeguarding policies for children and youth continue to apply online. Communications and gatherings involving minors must include three or more participants, and images of minors may not be published without permission. Certain settings and features on Zoom may be enabled or disabled by the host in order to maintain our safeguarding standards. 

• Zoom meetings for children and youth formation are password protected and links are sent directly to families each week rather than being published publicly. All children and youth are welcome to join. If you have not been receiving these links and would like to, please email Cathy (for children in pre-K through grade 5) at cportlock@trinitychurchboston.org or myself (for youth in grades 6-12) at sneumann@trinitychurchboston.org. 

• It’s always optional to enable your camera on Zoom. You may not always want to invite 50 other people into your living room, and that’s okay! If you’d prefer to watch and listen without being seen by others, feel free to turn your video off, or enable it just when you’re speaking. 

• In larger Zoom gatherings with many participants, there can be a lot of background noise that makes it difficult to hear the speaker. You can help with this by muting your microphone whenever you aren’t speaking. 

 

Our corps of volunteer Zoom Angels continues to be available to anyone who would like a hand with learning how to use Zoom. 

  

With best wishes,  

 

Sarah Neumann 

Minister for Youth and Young Adults