Dear People of St. James’,
It is with such joy and gratitude that I share this news with you! All week long we have had contractors on site upgrading our AV systems in the sanctuary. Speakers, monitors, and mounted video cameras have been installed. Sound and video runs to the Narthex. Hearing assistance systems have been expanded. And now, we have livestreaming capabilities, so that, instead of tuning into a carefully pieced-together video, people will be able to see and hear and feel the responsive joy of our in-person services. Our hope is that we will not only resolve many of the audio accessibility issues that have plagued us since we moved into the building at 1941 Webberville, but that we are setting ourselves up for sharing the good news from St. James’ well into the future.
This is exciting! Those of you joining us in person should notice some differences as soon as this weekend, but we hope that you will have patience as we fine tune some things with the help of John Somers-Morales, our Sound Technician. Those of you joining us online will notice that we are shifting from the video of the service to livestreaming on Sunday, June 27. You will be able to access the services from the same places (the buttons on the e-news, the Worship Online page of the website, our Facebook Page). The big difference is that the livestreamed service won’t be online until 10:30, whereas we have been posting the worship videos a lot earlier. If you want to tune in to a livestreamed service, but you can’t be online at 10:30 am, that’s okay. It will be recorded and accessible as video for you to watch later in the day or week.
We look forward to using our new systems for special events as well. For example, on Saturday, August 21, we will host a live and online book launch and conversation with The Rev. Victor Thomas, Rector of St. James’, Houston, about his new book on prayer, Secretly and Often: The Journey of Prayer. This system adds additional reach to our ministries while assisting those dealing with hearing loss in participating more fully in the life of the community.
Some of you might be asking, how could we afford to do all this? The funding for this project comes to us from the Thomas Cain Fund for Historic Black Churches, a part of the Diocese of Texas’ Racial Justice Initiative. This year, the Cain Fund disbursed grants to congregations seeking to remedy long-standing infrastructural and accessibility issues. This was the moment for us to hybridize our space and fund the resolutions to accessibility problems that our audio committee has urged upon us for many years. I am so grateful to the Cain Fund, and to our audio committee that has done so much good work and planning for us over the years! Without the audio committee’s hard work and foresight, we would not have been prepared to write such a compelling grant request. I am also grateful to John Somers-Morales, our Sound Technician, who has taken on the video production over the course of the pandemic to keep us going, and who is facilitating us moving into the use of this new technology. Here, we have to thank the audio committee as well for their foresight in professionalizing the sound technician position. Even they could not know how fortunate our timing was with that move, given the pandemic!
At St. James’, we seek to welcome all to the table for spiritual nourishment. May many people find welcome and joy in God’s presence as a result of these new steps forward!
Rev. Eileen
