Cedar Hills takes its church services online

SANDPOINT — Do you remember that old nugget from Sunday school?

You put your hands together and folded them together and said: “Here is the church.” Then you pointed your index fingers upward and said: “There is the steeple.” Followed by moving your thumbs apart and saying: “Open the doors” and, as you opened your hands and turned them over, wiggling your finger as you finished with: “And here are the people.”

Forget that.

These days with experts recommending against gatherings of more than 10 people and distances of 6 feet or more between individuals, churches have had to get creative to still help their congregations worship.

For Cedar Hills Church, that’s meant going online.

Going online is something the church has been talking about for a while due to the shifting landscape on what is safe due to the dangers posed by the coronavirus pandemic. Cedar Hills did a soft launch last weekend and lead pastor Eric Rust said there were as many people watching online as there were at its McGhee Road campus.

While the church is no stranger to the online world — it posts a number of different videos and is active on social media — the new platform offers a more interactive experience, Rust said.

“The church by our essence, we’re all about belonging, we’re about each other, we’re about people,” Rust said. “And so when we step away from each other, you miss that piece. So our intention has been, we want to provide an alternative, a digital way where people can not just watch, but actually participate and engage.”

The new platform does just that. Not only can the congregation — and those interested in joining — watch the service, they can participate in it, say hello to others attending online and even ask for a live prayer.

“We want people to feel that [connectivity],” Rust said. “They’re not just watching like a Netflix show. This isn’t Netflix, this isn’t Amazon Prime. This is your gathering experience.”

The church also made a deliberate choice to align the services with its normal service times instead of posting the service as a static video. “We wanted people who are actually participating at the same time so there’s that sense that ‘I’m a part of this with hundreds of other people. I’m not just doing this solo,’ ” Rust said. “There’s a belonging piece.”

Rust said going online is not coming from a place of fear, but from one of how can the church best serve its congregation and not put anyone in danger by being tied to traditional services or ways of worshiping.

“I’ve been very direct in our church in saying we are not people of fear, at all. The last people that ought to be afraid are followers of Jesus. We are people of courage, people of boldness, people of faith,” he added. “So part of this decision is we want to be bold in leading the way. We don’t know how it’s all going to work out but we don’t want to hold onto our traditional way of meeting in a building. We don’t want that to get in the way of potentially putting some folks in danger.”

Rust said, in some ways, the pandemic is giving churches an opportunity to love their communities in a fresh way, to reach out and connect and engage with others.

“Let’s be people who love our neighbors, let’s check in with our elderly neighbors and make sure they have everything they need,” Rust has been telling his congregation. “Let’s be people of peace, people of hope when we go to work and not get caught up in negativity and let’s be a part of the solution by doing our part to be more cautious in the environments we put ourselves in.”

Office administrator Nick Phillips and Christina Aguilera-Levasseur, administrative assistant, helped set up the online effort, with Phillips adding the pandemic gave the church the “push” to go fully online.

“One of the things we’ve been wanting to do is to move to an online campus where people all over can access videos of our weekly gatherings or provide resources for people, especially if they leave the area or are on vacation or something but they still want to be connected to the community,” Phillips said. “Obviously with this coronavirus, it kind of gave us the push we needed to kind of finish the things we had been working on and put them into place.”

Phillips said the church normally attracts between 250-300 people per service with online services offered through Facebook Live attracting 20-50 people. Through the new platform, the numbers indicate as many as 500 people worshiped virtually.

“So far, feedback we had is all positive,” he said. “People were excited to be able to watch from their house. A lot of people who initially watched [before] were on vacation or under the weather, they’re happy to be able to watch from their house. They really like that.”

Rust said the Cedar Hills is not alone in exploring — or moving to — online worship during the COVID-19 pandemic. Others in the community are also exploring ways to worship virtually, from Facebook Live to YouTube to emailing videos to their congregations.

Cedar Hills meets Thursdays at 6 p.m. and on Sundays at 9 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. To take part in one of its online services, go online to its website at cedarhillschurch.com.