St. Peter’s Case Study
In March 2020, many organizations that used to function in the public square had to close their doors and find new ways to survive. Coupled with the stress of the public health crisis unraveling, maintaining a community through otherwise unused channels seemed like it was going to be a year of disconnection just at the moment when we needed it the most.
When St. Peter’s by-the-Sea Episcopal Church in Narragansett, Rhode Island (full disclosure, Ron is a parishioner) had to close down, they had no choice but move to completely online. This church has been serving the community for 151 years, and had no plans of stopping now.
Transitioning a largely in-person service to a purely virtual environment presented some challenges, and we had limited options, but we came up with a plan.
The Morning Prayer Service
Instead of simply recording the mass, we thought it best to get to the core of the service, which is truly a form of meditation. To that end, we juxtaposed contemplative vignettes inside the church with landscapes from the surrounding Narragansett area. This allowed the congregation to not only connect with each other, but with the environment they may be sequestered from. Finished videos were produced every week and launched Sunday mornings on YouTube and Facebook.
In addition, we recorded unique music each week from local musicians inside the church to keep people connected with familiar sounds and songs. (Learning how to best record a pipe organ was a unique challenge on it’s own.)
“An Order of Compline”
Each week we recorded voice-over audio and music in-studio and on location. The 10-15 minute narration from Father Craig Swan was paired with a single composition of a local landscape at sunset. We found that the landscape served as a peaceful backdrop to the [fill in what compline is here].
“Mead’s Meanderings”
Father Andrew Mead is a retired priest and parishioner at St. Peter’s. His theological and scholarly insight on Church topics brought [blank] to the table.
The St. Peter’s Podcast
In the “Waste Not” spirit, we repurposed the compline services, Fr. Craig’s sermons, Holy Communion, and Mead’s Meanderings into a Podcast which is now reaching a global audience and continues to grow.
Re-targeting the website
The church website needed a refresh, primarily to offer comfort in this time of disconnect. We put a priority on keeping things simple, by making sure visitors could get what they came for, just as easily as walking through the church doors. This also increased the website traffic and increased engagement.