Easter Streaming

On Friday we told you about the preparations of several area churches for conducting Easter services online.

On friday we told you about the preparations of several area churches for conducting easter services online.

Wcbi's chad groening reports on how resurrection sunday went for one of those churches.

For several weeks facebook has been the only way members of faith baptist church in satillo have been able to view sunday services.

And with the continued shutdown of the country because of the coronavirus, this easter sunday found senior pastor phil ellis once again preaching in a virtually empty sanctuary.

"it was weird in my mind but progressively this is the fourth or fifth sunday we've done this.

Increasingly it's helped me to realize that we're sharing this message with a larger following than what we see in room here so that's not so bad as far as the building goes."

Minister of students and education mark taylor admits it has been a bit strange talking to an empty room.

"it's alot different than anything we've ever encountered before but the silver lining in that is we can reach so may people.

And there's a great audience out there that are hungry to hear the gospel and to hear the message of jesus and i believe that through all of this we are reaching more people than we would just in building.

But it is different.

It's very strange to be talking to camera in an empty room."

For the congregation of faith baptist church satillo as well as hundreds of churches across mississippi and thousands of churches across the united states there is hope that it won't be much longer before these hallways are filled with worshippers.

"i can say without doubt now with certainty that when the wheels begin to turn of our society again.

And in the future when faith baptist satillo is meeting in the building we will certainly continue our live stream platform for sure."

"i really believe that this is something we could reach a lot of people.

I know my generation and the generation below me have great tech ability.

And this is there wheelhouse.

They know how to use this and they know how to use it in great way.

And so i think when we get started back on a normal schedule that this can just add another layer to our church ministry being able to reach more people."

One of persons responsible for the technical marvel of an online easter service is audio visual volunteer martin pitts, who says there was a lot of heartache getting everything to work.

"a lot of issues will come up and it's a lot of us trying to fire fight and figure what's going on and what's causes it and how to fix it.

And if we can't fix it during the live stream how can we make sure it doesn't happen for the next stream."

Ellis says overall the easter online broadcast went very well.

Chad groening wcbi news, satillo.

The church says they reached 14- hundred people with today's broadcast.

And they expect more will watch it online