First Congregational Church of Randolph

Photo Journey Through 2020 with First Congregational Church of Randolph

Interview with Rev. Donald Remick

Over the last 18 months or so, our nation has faced two pandemics—the health pandemic of COVID 19 and the pandemic of continuous Racial Injustice. As you think about these 2 pandemics, how did they impact your mission & ministry activities?

January 2021 stepped into a local church. The church invested money into recording worship.
Easter was approaching. Not at Easter, but soon after we started livestreaming worship.
Learning how to do everything. Recording sermon on Thursday; preaching to sanctuary crowd. New people only showing up online. Readjusting thinking. How to preach to 4 different “congregations” at the same time.
How do we take what we used to do on a Sunday morning and transition it to online?
Most of the time on Churchwide staff - encouraged congregations to get out to the church into the world.
The community of Randolph - most diverse in MA. Our congregation has a level of diversity, but it has been primarily white.
The church is adapting to the changes around it. The question for the future - how do we minister to this community? Also adapt to the changes in society?
Identity development opportunity for the church during this time. COVID created instability and it has helped us look at how we do ministry and how we tackle racism.
The church invested about $30,000 in tech equipment in fall of 2020. The church continued to adapt and innovating to how to create worship experiences.
The leadership wants to keep asking this question….How do we create a worship experience that is engaging for members and visitors - live in person and online that is impactful and faithful to God?
How do we talk with visitors to see what is most impactful and faithful?

What were the low points, failures or frustrations?

Technology is wonderful when it works but it is discouraging when it doesn’t work. We had continual glitches on Sunday mornings. We have a vision of what we want to do but sometimes the tech doesn’t work.

Low and High point - when we want to address race in the congregation. Some people are excited about it and want to talk about it. Others say we are “preaching politics.” We have asked ourselves, "how do we do this so that it can be engaging and includes everyone?"

What were the high points and successes?

Successes - that the tech we are using helps us reach people. We are seeing regular members showing up online, as well as people that are not members.

We can say this is working, but how are we going to make this work more effectively?

What lessons, learnings or changes will your congregation carry into the future?

The jury is still out - but the lesson learned is worship can be done differently than with we have done before, and the impact that we can have beyond our walls is great. Through live-streaming and using some of the equipment for other types of ministry we are engaging the world in a different way. There is an attitude of "we can do this" and there is permission and curiosity. There is clear missional passion in the congregation, which will help us become a better church in the future.

Lesson learned on the racism side - We are a primarily white church in a diverse community. One lesson learning is - how do we get out into our neighborhood and get to know people and bring them not only into the church but into the leadership of the church? We can’t solve social issues from inside the church. We need to get engaged in the community. We don’t just have programs in the community but instead get out there and engage in the community.