Switching to online worship has been a lesson in humility and vulnerability for us as worship leaders. Leading worship every Sunday in person to our close-knit congregation of 40 is a different experience from filming a worship service that may have more than 30,000 views. Our biggest challenge has been leading the music. Music is an essential part of worship and some of the most profound moments of worship come from song. We want to continue to create powerful moments through the internet. Our challenge comes from the fact that we are still developing common songs that everyone knows, especially during Lent and Holy Week. Our charter members are all from El Salvador. Some were regular attendees of Lutheran services, some were strong Catholics, and others were Catholics that didn’t go to church often. Our service has doubled in attendance since last Holy Week, with many of the new members coming from Mexico. The hymnal is a collection of songs from all Spanish-speaking countries in the world that maybe no one in our congregation has heard before.

For the first week or two of online worship, we had almost no music, because we knew without words, the melodies weren’t going to be familiar and were going to have little impact on enhancing anyone’s worship experience. We realized we were going to have to start leading singing. This has primarily fallen on Edwin, with some help from our daughters, Marta and Luisa. We’ve started adding the lyrics on screen. My piano playing skills and Edwin’s skills aren’t at a level where we would normally volunteer to be so public as a musical act, but we hope that our willingness will remind our virtual congregation that they don’t need to be perfect singers to lift their voices in praise. And if I want Edwin to do yardwork outside, I just need to start editing the video and turn up the volume on the computer while he is singing and he will be outside working for hours!

Sarah Aparicio

(Reprinted from the May 2020 newsletter.)

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