A thoughtful and deeply pastoral priest, he longs to see young people participating in parish life and finding meaning in it. About two years ago, as a postulant at the cathedral, he got to work reaching out to the young people who visited the parish. He started collecting contact information and, at his first opportunity, began planning simple get-togethers for the young adults.

So how do young people communicate? Once upon a time, flyers, phone calls and eventually email were the way to let people know about events, services or groups they were invited to. While those tools are still in use, they aren’t always the most effective among the available options. Just as ministries in the Church have evolved, so have the tools and technology used to communicate. There are multiple instant messaging platforms for discussions or sharing details, and Mr. Waterman found himself using WhatsApp to stay connected with his growing group of young adults. He is still using it to this day.

Other apps and platforms have made their way into the communications of this burgeoning fellowship. In the beginning, Mr. Waterman found the app “Meet Up” very helpful. Meet Up is used to share or find events, outings or groups of particular interest. The host plugs in the information about their event, and anyone looking for something along those lines sees it in their search with the information they need to get in touch or attend.

While Mr. Waterman found Meet Up quite useful for reaching people interested in excursions to Toronto Islands or local galleries and museums, the people who attended weren’t as interested in being part of a faith community. So he continued to connect with people who visited the church and collect their information in person. He made it even easier for himself by creating a QR code that he could bring up on his smartphone screen, letting an interested person scan it and add their contact details in the provided form. Almost instantly, they were added to his address book and the group chat.

When enough people had expressed interest in gathering for faith formation and fellowship, Mr. Waterman put it to the group: How do you want to meet? What are your preferences for gathering? There were cases made for both in-person and online formats. By 2023, everyone was very familiar with Zoom and Microsoft Teams, which were useful to a point. When the group decided to watch Netflix’s Midnight Mass, Teams didn’t work, and even Zoom could never fully guarantee people’s full attention. Mr. Waterman found that people would join an online meeting while doing other things such as commuting or cooking dinner.

“People wanted to engage, but they had a lot of other things to take care of,” he says. This influenced the shift to holding their meetings in person, where he found that people were attentive and contributed more.

The group hasn’t abandoned its use of technology altogether. The WhatsApp chat has continued to play an important role in the group’s formation and development. At in-person meetings, people share about what’s going on in their lives, especially around work, school, living situations and partnerships, with many experiences shared by members because of the stage of life they’re in. The WhatsApp chat allows them to keep the conversation going throughout the week. If the group takes time to pray for those in search of work, for instance, they can send each other job postings through the chat. They can share updates about job interviews or even secured employment, so the group knows how to continue praying for each other. And then another in-person meeting happens, and a happy cycle of meeting and communication results.

Leading this group doesn’t come without challenges. While it seems to have found a rhythm that suits most members, the precarious life stage of the average young adult often precludes the guarantee of long-term commitment. They are working hard on degrees, chasing careers, pursuing relationships, and trying to find stable and affordable housing. Any of these things can end up requiring relocation and departure from the cathedral and their fellowship group.

“The encouragement is that even as people leave, more people keep joining,” says Mr. Waterman. “There is never a shortage of people to minister to, to connect with and to serve in this location.”

The group has become self-sustaining, with about 40-45 members who attend with some frequency. And Mr. Waterman is finding that, overall, they are investing themselves in the parish – connecting with other clergy and with parishioners in other demographics, whether older or younger. They are offering their gifts, skills and leadership to their fellowship group and to the wider church community, serving as they are able.

Most importantly, they are taking up the task of watching for new young people to invite into their fold. Having found a place to belong, where they are supported, cherished and invested in, the young people of St. James Cathedral are excited to share this experience with others who they know will benefit from the group – and who will have gifts of their own to offer.

Through trial and error, Mr. Waterman says he’s very happy to see these developments in just two years, and he looks forward to further iterations of the group, using all the tools available to them, as God continues to lead and shape their fellowship together.

For more information on hybrid ministry, visit www.toronto.anglican.ca/parish-resources/hybrid-ministry or email onlineministry@toronto.anglican.ca.

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For many years the congregation has been glued together in part because of Connect Groups. Members gather in informal affinity groups, now mostly online, to build community, pray, study the bible, share life and support one another.

Before COVID-19 lockdowns, elder seniors – those in their 80s to over 100 – used to gather in person. Suddenly isolated from each other, volunteer Elizabeth Beecham began to gather this tightly knit group on Zoom.

“Tech was not the barrier. If they had devices, seniors went online,” she says.

Suddenly the church doors were flung open to them once again. Without the obstacles of complicated transportation to in-person services, the group has flourished. Zoom allows these parishioners – lifelong Anglicans who built up and carried the church over the years – to see each other, chat and catch up. In this safe space, even the most vulnerable elders can comment on the sermon, talk about whatever challenges they face and see old friends who are no longer able to gather at St. George’s.

Ms. Beecham has led this group since 2020, at first to succeed her own mother, who had run in-person gatherings in the past. She carries on because this volunteer ministry is so rewarding, and she knows it represents authentic community. Her own roots in this community run deep. She recalls that her parents’ first act upon immigrating to Canada was to worship at St. George’s. Her ministry of listening and caring has connected her not just to her mother’s church friends but to people she now knows more fully.

The door is open for newcomers – usually seniors who have moved in with their grown children from outside Toronto. These uprooted people find new friends in the Connect group. Membership is fluid: while some come, some stay and others move on. Ms. Beecham does her best to communicate with group members and keep everyone up to date.

Many participants bring a deeply held faith into the group, and some do not. Professional caregivers or grown children get their elders online but then often stay for the session. Ms. Beecham says they’re welcome to be full participants. They join in prayer and discussions and are encouraged with special prayers of thanks and support for caregivers. Evangelism happens organically, as the parish compassionately shows that it cares for these vulnerable and cherished members. Helpers and elders alike have the option of worshipping on Sunday through Facebook or viewing the recorded service later on YouTube.

At Christmas, parish volunteers bake goods for housebound people. Dedicated volunteers drop off cookies, brownies and hot chocolate at elders’ homes so that everyone online has the same joy in sharing these treats during the Connect Group meeting. And caregivers aren’t forgotten, receiving their own Christmas fare.

The ministry of listening to each other is often the most important act of community. Caregivers attend with patience as seniors share their life stories, sorrows and achievements. This group of friends validates each other in a modern recreation of old-fashioned community where people meet, sing, pray, gossip and laugh with each other.

Some challenges still exist. Members have multiple medical appointments, and their schedules are subject to changes beyond their own control. Caregivers also have scheduling conflicts, but the group meets even when only two or three are gathered together.

“There’s lots of juggling,” says Ms. Beecham. After much experimentation, she has pulled back from the Covid-era weekly gatherings and now holds meetings once a month. Those seniors who connect only by phone also miss the joy of seeing their friends and being seen.

“If I could dream about our future, we would have video-enabled tech for everyone facing in-person barriers,” she says. She hopes to explore the option of purchasing refurbished devices.

She also envisions fostering communication between generations. She knows seniors have much to offer youth and youth to seniors, and that youth can be just as isolated as seniors. She hopes to see some sort of mentoring that would build up intergenerational connections using this shared technology.

Ultimately, people do long to see each other in person despite many logistical barriers. Some can gather for special events, and all of them look forward to the Rev. Ali MacIntosh, the parish’s priest-in-charge, visiting online and providing in-person pastoral care. At St. George’s, online and incarnational care go hand in hand.

This ministry has broken down the walls that isolate elder seniors and opened wide the doors at St. George on Yonge. “Our elders know that they are part of our congregation,” says Ms. Beecham.

For more information on hybrid ministry, visit www.toronto.anglican.ca/parish-resources/hybrid-ministry or email onlineministry@toronto.anglican.ca.

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One of the parish’s first experiences with hybrid services was the children’s ministry series it held online during the pandemic. Rotating hosts told stories with props and songs, and the recordings are still available online today.

But not everything can transition to a hybrid format so easily. Once a quarter, the church holds an informal service in the basement, complete with snacks and round table discussions. Trying to stream that service didn’t work as well as the team had hoped, as there were a lot of empty pauses while people thought. But by recording and editing it afterwards, they can try to make it a bit more interesting. That isn’t their only struggle, though: moving all the technology to the basement is complex, with long cords and internet cables all over the place, along with a lack of microphones. They hope that in the future they will find ways to make it more manageable.

Though the livestream team had experimented with streaming to YouTube early on, it found that the limited interactivity and feedback through You Tube’s chat feature was not enough. By contrast, Zoom’s chat feature was crucial in helping Mr. Coatsworth and Ms. Glandfield stay on top of troubleshooting, although texting could be used if the chat wasn’t an option.

Ms. Glandfield now provides a one-sentence summary at the end of each service – a reference to a hymn or sermon. It gets viewers talking to one another in the chat, like a quick bible study to end each service. It also provides an opportunity to have more complex questions from the community forwarded to others within the parish if deeper consideration is required. As it turns out, the benefits of Zoom ended up being so many, and the number of events to be held so high, that the parish invested in two paid accounts.

The process of moving to a hybrid format has been largely trial and error for Christ Church St. James, with plenty of online tutorials to learn the many necessary tasks. Mr. Coatsworth was a Sunday school teacher before the pandemic, so this was an entirely new skillset for him to learn. Now, though there are still a few hiccups, he runs most of the livestream smoothly. The team has also learned to use a hardwired connection instead of Wi-Fi after the internet went down one day in mid-stream. While the crew is managing for the time being, it’s hard not to dream of one day having a bigger team – one large enough to work music, lyrics and everything else all together. There’s room for improvement with the equipment, too: Zoom recordings aren’t the highest resolution, and while OBS (Open Broadcaster Software) could probably solve the issue, there’s the concern that running all the programs at once may be too much for the laptop.

Even with the lower resolution, the crew at Christ Church St. James still does its best to upload quality content over the course of the week. After a bit of experimentation that taught them that they would be unable to upload so much video content without crashing their website, they decided to shift to YouTube, this time for recordings instead of streaming. It’s hard to break up a whole sermon into a YouTube short, but when it fits together just right, it’s very satisfying. Before shifting to hybrid services, they hadn’t even known that the parish had a YouTube channel, but now the shorts attract followers, with some shorts gaining up to 2,000 views and bringing in eyes for longer-form content.

Difficult as it’s been, the team says moving to a hybrid format has been worth it. The offertory went up so significantly in 2020-2021 that the parish leadership had to confirm with the diocese that they had indeed recorded the right numbers. But nothing is more important than how hybrid ministry has benefited the community. From accessing help with bereavement and grief management, to simply being able to attend services during a snowstorm from the comfort of their own homes, hybrid services bring convenience, comfort and connection to the whole community.

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Although it wasn’t the initial goal, the team has found that hybrid services open the metaphorical church doors to many who would otherwise not be able to attend. Now the elderly, those with mobility issues or a lack of transit, or anyone with a barrier between them and the church are all able to attend a regular weekly service together. Even if a person were to go on vacation, they wouldn’t be severed from their worshipping community.

Many of the 20 to 30 online attendees are regulars, but there are also some new faces. People searching for a new church get a private opportunity to experience worship at the parish and learn more about the priest, the music and even the dress code, all without having to commit to coming in person. In a society where meeting people and going out is becoming more challenging, strangers of different ages and ethnicities showing interest in one’s life is often a novelty; offering that connection to all for free is invaluable. Even if people choose not to stay, it’s a good opportunity to connect with others, especially if they are otherwise going to be alone that day.

The parish also advertises its worship services to communities such as retirement homes, providing posters with tear-off tabs with the link to the livestream so that anyone interested can attend the hybrid service. Similarly, having a hybrid option available is very helpful when it comes to funerals. Anyone who can’t attend in person can still experience the closure afforded by a funeral, and families appreciate being able to see that everyone’s there in one way or another.

Attending from home doesn’t simply make someone a fly on the wall. All Saints decided to invest in the intimacy of Zoom over the impersonal nature of YouTube videos. It’s important to the team that its hybrid services have an element of interactivity, which is not available through recorded videos or platforms such as YouTube.

“One of the great things, I think, about Zoom is that there’s more connection between people who can text each other, or just text the group, and also our ability to say hi in the morning. That’s worked well for us,” says Tim Ralph, ODT, one of the church’s digital vergers who welcomes attendees and hosts the call.

The services are always live to preserve the authentic nature of in-person Sunday worship. Every parishioner, at home or in person, is a valued member of the community who should feel welcomed and involved. The chat feature of the video calls is crucial to form that connection. Before and after the service, attendees can chat amongst themselves and with the digital vergers, who can send helpful links (such as a digital guestbook survey at the end of each service or a donation page link). They have sometimes been invited to participate in the service through readings and other means. When speaking to the congregation, the priest will include those on the hybrid call, to honour their presence.

Little changes have made the hybrid service more aesthetic and welcoming. At first, no one had anticipated that viewers would want to see Communion, so the camera would pan to the windows and give the 150-year-old architecture a spotlight. To the team’s surprise, however, people did want to see their friends and others taking Communion, even if they couldn’t interact. To accommodate this desire, the server’s position was shifted during the offertory prayer to better show their face to the camera and let everyone be part of the experience.

The Rev. Jennifer Schick has even made a small tradition of giving a little wave goodbye to the camera as she leaves, and the people wave back, even though she can’t see them. “Though the wave is being shared between cameras, and Rev. Shick isn’t truly face-to-face with her online parishioners, a connection is made every week,” says Mr. Ralph.

Despite the team’s growing knowledge, the hybrid experience of All Saints is far from a polished TV program. Little accidents occur, such as a priest forgetting to turn their microphone back on, but they are all part of the authentic experience. This is far more a strength than a weakness. There’s a certain down-to-earth intimacy to hybrid services that a pre-recording without an element of interactivity simply can’t capture. During the COVID-19 crisis, the church even hosted a hybrid pancake supper through Zoom. Events like that would simply not be as interesting as a recorded video.

All Saints encourages other parishes to invest in the intimacy of Zoom over the impersonal nature of YouTube videos. With a small but dedicated group of parishioners and a friendly environment to talk and connect in, the parish is committed to connection, interactivity and community, and it will continue to provide its hybrid services going forward. No matter what circumstances or struggles its parishioners face, the parish and the community remain as accessible and inviting as they’ve always been.

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Not only do the livestreams allow parishioners to stay connected when they can’t make it to worship services in person due to mobility issues, work or other obstacles, but they’ve attracted followers from around the world. One woman in Costa Rica, who has never been to Peterborough, is a regular viewer and has e-transferred donations twice. Previously, it would have been almost impossible to support any church except those that were nearby, but now a parish can have dedicated worshippers from around the globe. Not only can each church have a broader reach, but online attendees have an expanse of options to find their favourite parish.

All Saints, Peterborough has the financial resources to go to the top of the game. Its hybrid motto is “don’t piecemeal it.” Go for the gold, or, barring that, get the help of someone who’s really good and put it together over time. Decide on an end goal and phase it in. The church recommends that other parishes reach out to companies, such as Maars Music, if necessary for assistance. As a result of doing that, All Saints has a rather complex and sophisticated setup, with three cameras for optimal angles and software that can handle both the livestream and PowerPoint.

The livestreams are run by the church’s tech “scholars.” Similar to the parish’s choral scholars – high school and university students in musical education and sometimes interested in learning another language – the tech scholars are paid an honorarium for their work. Each livestream is managed by two of the five rotating scholars, one running the livestream and the other handling the PowerPoint. Although presets and fade-ins are already programmed to make tasks such as switching to the right camera at the right time easier, the skills of the two scholars at the back of the church are what makes the livestream run smoothly.

Or as smoothly as it can, anyway. Despite the church’s professional setup and talented scholars, there will always be a bit of what the Rev. Samantha Caravan, incumbent, calls “holy chaos” – the interruptions of restless children or a parishioner’s coughing fit… the little exclamations of life that no gathering is without. Mistakes are part of everyone’s experience, in-person or hybrid. While having cameras on you can give you a sense of pressure to perform, she says, holy chaos forces everyone to just roll with it; as a result, hosting the livestreams isn’t stressful.

Rev. Caravan, who has been at All Saints for six years, has been changing the language used in the church to be more inclusive, such as no gendered language for God. This is appealing to a lot of newcomers to the church, who feel more comfortable and at home with language that better includes them. Beyond the worship services, the church hosts all-candidates meetings and political debates, as well as Truth and Reconciliation opportunities; people outside the parish can tune in for one of these events. They can also choose to leave their name and contact info if they wish or join an upcoming in-person event.

The church does everything it can to ensure that the hybrid attendees receive the same care and availability as the in-person ones – short of mailing out Communion wafers, as one hybrid attendee had hoped might be possible. Even something as simple as speaking to the camera can make those at home feel as though they are there. This is especially important during life events such as funerals or weddings, which the church will sometimes livestream so that family members who can’t attend in person aren’t left out. Services like this are an important addition to what the church provides, and it’s all made possible by the inclusion of this new hybrid technology.

For more information, visit www.toronto.anglican.ca/parish-resources/hybrid-ministry.

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