Weekly Zoom worship group celebrates five years of morning prayer services
For participants, what makes the service remarkable is how ordinary it is
On Friday, a group of 13 Presbyterians — and one from the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) tradition — gathered on Zoom at 8:30 a.m. Eastern time. Nothing about the gathering stood out as particularly remarkable. Participants exchanged greetings and brief life updates, and then joined together for a short worship service. The energy was comfortable and familiar, like it had been done hundreds of times before — because it had. What made Friday’s prayer service remarkable was, in fact, how ordinary it was. As of Friday’s gathering, this group has gathered every week for morning prayer for five years.
Karen Wellington, a ruling elder from First Presbyterian Church of Goshen, Indiana, who described herself as a more recent joiner, said she tries to never miss. “From the beginning, everyone was friendly and kind, welcoming and gracious,” she said. “When I initially started attending, I was bottle feeding my calf and the group was always anxious to see her growth progress.”
In May 2020, the world was deep in the throes of the Covid pandemic. Many places were under shelter-in-place orders. Grocery trips and doctor’s appointments had become fraught with risk. Frontline workers were laboring around the clock to save lives. Everyone else stayed home, cut off from the vestiges of in-person community life in the name of public safety.
Amid this turmoil, pastors and other church staff were left to minister to their people in whatever ways they could — through livestreamed worship services in empty sanctuaries and daily prayer emails and video visits with struggling congregants. It was a time of profound innovation and collective creativity, where virtual connection became a lifeline instead of simply a daily convenience.
The pandemic took a heavy toll on many people, and church staff were no exception — doing their work in isolation, with few resources and no precedent. A small group of Presbyterian leaders recognized the deep need for professional faith leaders to have their own source of community and support.
The Rev. Dr. Martha Moore-Keish, JB Green Professor of Theology at Columbia Theological Seminary, said the idea for weekly prayer started from a conversation she had with a Columbia alum, the Rev. Rob Jackson. Jackson learned the practice of morning prayer while in Company of New Pastors and reached out to Moore-Keish with a hunger to rekindle the discipline during Covid. The Presbyterian Association of Musicians was quick to add its support.
Others joined in the early organizing work: pastors including the Rev. Marci Auld Glass and the Rev. Lisa Schrott, director of music Karrie Rushing, along with the Rev. Dr. David Gambrell, the PC(USA)’s associate for worship.
An initial Zoom gathering was scheduled, and each participant invited colleagues and friends; it’s continued ever since. Others learned of the gathering by word of mouth and began to attend. Numbers grew to a few dozen people, most of whom participated regularly. Worshipers have included pastors, professors, church musicians, Christian educators and mid council leaders. Almost everyone is Presbyterian, but the gathering is open to others as well.
Participants attend from all across the country: Georgia, New York, Arkansas, Colorado, California, Michigan and many other places. Eventually, a second service was established on Monday mornings at 11 o’clock Eastern Time, to accommodate more folks in the Pacific time zone.
While the group initially used Word documents and PDFs to share liturgy and music, worship leaders quickly evolved to using slides. Volunteers take turns preparing the liturgy and music for the week. At the outset of the gathering, participants sign up to lead prayers and read scripture. Thirty minutes later, they part ways with signs of peace and return to their in-person lives.
Five years on, Covid remains a public health issue. But most of the hallmarks of communal life have been re-established, including in-person worship and church events. Many congregations that began livestreaming services during the pandemic continue to do so as a way to reach those unable to attend in person. However, most purely virtual worship gatherings eventually stopped or faded in participation, the relics of a haunting moment in history.
For this group of Zoom worshipers, however, weekly gatherings remain a crucial ritual. Regular participants have come and gone, but the community remains steady, and the services continue in their ordinary but sacred format.
Friday’s service was put together by Schrott, a founding group member. One of the hymns — “Hallelujah, Sing Praise to Your Creator” — was directed and recorded by group member and church musician Chi Yi Chen Wolbrink’s choir. During the intercessory prayer, participants lifted up prayers of thanksgiving for five years together. Some shared stories of how the prayer group had become a pivotal community for them. Others lifted up the names of friends or colleagues who had first invited them to join.
While the prayer service is brief, its consistency and the impact of the community that has formed around it runs deep. Wellington shared about joining the group on a particularly difficult Friday morning when she had received deeply upsetting news.
“I was crying, but I pulled it together in time for the service to start. That particular day, I basked in the liturgy, the words of the Scripture, and the prayer time,” she said. “It was a soothing balm to my soul.”
The Rev. Scott Miller, who began attending two years ago around the time the church he was serving had decided to close, said both he and his congregation benefitted from the group’s prayerful support, describing it as a “tremendous blessing.”
“Knowing that we were being held in prayer brought us great comfort when we held our closing service on March 2,” Miller said, “and gave us the courage we needed to end our ministry well.”
Gambrell said that a recent survey of participants revealed a strong desire to continue meeting along with hopes that word may spread and others might join. With those hopes in mind, the group will continue to gather each week, doing what they’ve done for hundreds of Fridays before.
The gathering’s profundity has always been in its simplicity. Burned out or struggling pastors, musicians, and other church leaders — hungry for the nourishment of their own worship community — need only click on a Zoom link to find friendly faces and join together in a time of prayer. In each other, they find connection and empathy. Together, they discover again and again the gospel truth that where two or three are gathered —even online — there also is Jesus.
If you’re interested in learning more about the weekly prayer service or joining in, please fill out this form.
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