In this Church House Blog, Jim Butterworth, Director of Communications in the Diocese of Chester provides updates on a range of national and diocesan resources that are rolling out to parishes now.
National, and diocesan resources
01 May 2020
By Jim Butterworth, Director of Communications
james.butterworth@chester.anglican.org
A whole series of updates on A Church Near You are providing parishes with resources to help them live-stream. ACNY continues to be at the heart of the National Church's digital strategy and it's important you update your listing if you can.
The National Church has just released three updates for ACNY, with more to come soon. Last Sunday a new non-digital phoneline service also went live. Called Daily Hope it is helping those for whom accessing the internet is not easy.
The Diocese of Chester is also hoping to make available to parishes bereavement resources to help communicate how the Church can help those who have recently been bereaved. More to come on that soon.
And Chester Cathedral is launching a series of talks about Mark. You are invited to join in with a course for 12 weeks at every lunchtime at 1.10pm on Wednesdays starting on May 13 and concluding on August 5. Clergy from around the diocese, including Bishop Keith Sinclair will talk about sections of Mark’s gospel each week and will take us through the whole gospel.
In this blog:
Free music for streamed services
Tool to help promote online giving via ACNY
Live-stream tags
Daily Hope
Read Mark
Free music for streamed services
Working with St Martin-in-the-Fields and the Royal School of Church Music, the Church of England has released rights-free music for use on streamed services. They are releasing up to five hymns each week, which are available for free from Resource Hub on A Church Near You (ACNY). New hymns will be made available every Thursday evening during the coronavirus pandemic.
Churches who wish to use this music as part of services via YouTube, Facebook, Zoom or other platforms must hold a CCLI Licence (which most churches already do) and add the streaming option to it. Read more here on how to do this and purchase that licence on the CCLI website.
Visit the Resource Hub to download this week’s choral music here.
Tool to help promote online giving via ACNY
Many editors have contacted us about how ACNY can support the receiving of online donations, and I'm pleased to say that a set of customisable videos to help churches promote their online giving platforms are in the Resources Hub. There are two videos – one shorter for social media and one longer for websites and live streaming – for churches to customise with your church name and giving details.
And coming soon is a new donation button that will be available for all ACNY homepages. Until then, churches can add a page to their ACNY listing with information about how people can donate. Churches can even add the customised donation video to the top of this page. Find out how to do that on the editor help centre here.
Read more details about the new resources here on the CofE blog.
Live-stream tags
There is now a ‘Live stream’ tag on A Church Near You, which churches can add to a service. Any service, whether streamed live or pre-recorded and then made available at a specific time for viewers to watch, should have the ‘live stream’ tag. This will ensure that your service is visible in the national search page that we are directing the public to: http://achurchnearyou.com/live-stream
Adding live-streamed services and events is done in just the same way as you would normally add a service or event to your ACNY page. You can find specific guidance for adding live-streamed services to your ACNY page on the Editor Help Centre.
Daily Hope
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby, has launched a free national phone line as a simple new way to bring worship and prayer into people’s homes while church buildings are closed because of the coronavirus.
Daily Hope, which is available from today, offers music, prayers and reflections as well as full worship services from the Church of England at the end of a telephone line.
The line – which is available 24 hours a day on 0800 804 8044 – has been set up particularly with those unable to join online church services during the period of restrictions in mind.
Read Mark
Chester Cathedral and the Diocese of Chester is inviting you to join in with a course for 12 weeks at 1.10 -2.00pm on Wednesdays starting on May 13 and concluding on August 5.
Clergy from around the diocese, including Bishop Keith Sinclair will talk about sections of Mark’s gospel each week and will take us through the whole gospel.
There are two ways you can join in
- You can join the sessions live on Wednesdays at 1.10 through Zoom and ask questions of the speaker. If you would like an invitation to be present please contact deansoffice@chestercathedral.com and you will be sent the link to enable you to connect for 1.10pm.
- You can watch the sessions on YouTube after they have been recorded on the cathedral website here: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCfTBv9K29kok_zzLCT7xSiQ?view_as=subscriber.