Maybe some of you are wondering why the schedules of the regular worship services have been changed since we began streaming. Initially, it was only the afternoon worship service that was moved from 4:30pm to 1:00pm. This change was in consideration of the fact that the afternoon preacher and sound engineer would have to wait for hours in an empty church building if we would wait to live stream at 430pm. Thus, we moved the service to 1:00pm, so that they could go home earlier to their families.
However, 1:00 pm still entailed a waiting hour of 1 hour and a half, not to mention having to prepare and eat lunch at church. Aside from this, there have been those who confessed the difficulty of following live streaming during the “unholy hour” of 1-2 pm especially if they had had a hefty lunch.
Thus, the elders decided to just move the services earlier than the original schedules. Considering that they would only be watching at home, spared from the usually time-consuming activities of grooming and preparing Sunday clothes and commuting to church, we thought that an 8 am Sunday School would not be a problem.
The morning worship begins at 9:30am, 30 minutes after the Sunday School ends. That is the usual gap that we have in our regular Sunday morning schedule. Our moving the 1pm service to 11:00am is again prompted by the two considerations mentioned above: consideration to the preacher and sound engineer and to those who find it difficult to stay alert right after lunch.
Just in case, you would have difficulties listening to three successive sessions in the morning (even if the services have been shortened to 1 hour) or if you are encountering distracting internet problems, you have the liberty to choose your own convenient time to watch (the recorded service), provided that it be done on the same Lord’s day. The ideal set-up nonetheless would be to listen live to all.
The services have been shortened to one hour in consideration of the fact that home viewing live streaming is very unideal and oftentimes distracting. The same situation is true when preaching to an empty church building. We have temporarily cut back on one hymn and the scripture reading. The other parts of worship including the offering remain intact.
