BY ALVERDTEKOSTER ANYAP & SARAH HAFIZAH CHANDRA
KUCHING: Churches are facing challenges in conducting services in the virtual realm due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
The parish priest of St James’ Anglican Church in Kampung Quop, Father Handi Ipo said it was challenging to send the message across to the congregation with the change in conducting church services from physical to online.
“As the parishioners are in their respective homes, there are bound to be distractions so they would not be able to fully concentrate.
“It is also challenging for the priests who are delivering the message because the style and approach is different. The feeling of enthusiasm and excitement is not there when you are only talking to the camera.
“Our church can actually accommodate up to 800 people so of course we miss our congregation. When you talk to the congregation in person, you can see their reaction and it gives you a sense of satisfaction,” he explained.
He mentioned that the church recently conducted its first online live stream for the Ash Wednesday on Feb 17. The live stream on its Facebook page had over 2,000 views and the post was shared by over 70 users.
Father Handi said that the church members’ experience and knowledge on technology had facilitated the online service but lack of strong internet connectivity was a hurdle that needed to be overcome.
“Even though it was our first time, everything went well. The video was actually pre-recorded. We have to do it this way because there is no wifi connection in the church and the network connectivity here can be unstable.
“There are many activities that we cannot conduct due to the Covid-19 pandemic but we have switched some of them to online-based. Our youth are in charge of conducting bible study and Sunday’s school online.
“My parishioners do approach me via phone calls and text messages on WhatsApp. However, there is still a need to go out and meet the elderly people when we conduct counselling or pray for them. We do adhere to the standard operating procedures (SOPs) whenever we have to go and meet people,” he added.
