Our final livestreamed service will be on November 27.
When the pandemic began, the staff and volunteers immediately started working on plans for a livestream. With only a few days to plan and no playbook to reference, we made arrangements for streaming our services - something that has continued for almost every Sunday service since. Countless hours were spent by our team to work out the technical challenges of streaming from homes, other churches, community centers, garages, a public park, and a school (we met and filmed/streamed from a total of nine different locations over the course of two years). Even after we began meeting at Creekside Middle School in April 2022, we continued the livestream for the sake of those who were unable to join us in person. Much work has been done by a small group of faithful people to keep our livestream going. It has been a labor of love that has served our church well in a very unique season. After the livestream ends, our A/V team will be freed up to improve the technical aspects of our Sunday gatherings.
We understand that attending our worship services has been challenging for some folks - especially for those who have health concerns and needed to stay home for safety reasons. If you are in that group, we thank you for continuing to tune in and staying engaged with the life of the church as much as possible.
Now that we have a better idea of the rhythms of the pandemic, our understanding is that it is relatively safe to attend Sunday gatherings. As we've been doing from the very beginning of the pandemic, we will take into consideration advice from public health officials if there are more COVID surges. We will also continue to place speakers in the courtyard area for those who prefer to stay outdoors during service.
More important than safety reasons, we believe that meeting physically with other believers is good and necessary for the soul. God created us as physical creatures, with soul and body. And he created us to live in community - with others in tangible, visible ways. When we meet on Sundays, we see our fellow members. We see their children running around and being goofy. We taste the elements of communion. We hear fellow believers sing the songs that we need sung to us as much as we need to sing them to God. We hear others recite the creeds and confessions that we often struggle to believe ourselves. We can look at our friends in the eye and shake their hands and give them hugs. These things are not possible over a livestream. God did not intend for church to be experienced over the internet, and a livestream is a poor substitute for the biblical church model. As much as possible, we need to be wholly invested in the church community - mentally, spiritually, and physically.
We're commanded to not neglect meeting with fellow believers (Hebrews 10:25). Therefore, the end of the livestream is an invitation to re-engage with the IGC community on Sunday mornings. For more thoughts on the necessity of gathered worship, we recommend reading this short blog post by Dane Ortlund.
While we will stop streaming our services, we will continue to post our sermon audio on our website every week. They will also be available for download on any podcast platform.
