Jesmond Parish Church live streaming their sermon online using Clayton TV’s YouTube channel and using screens and cameras during their in-person services. [Picture by: Lauren Clarke]

Eight out of 12 churches in Jesmond are now live streaming their services or providing online alternatives.

Local churches including St George’s Church, Jesmond United Reformed Church and Jesmond Parish Church are using YouTube and Facebook to broadcast their services weekly.

Most of Jesmond’s churches told JesmondLocal they began broadcasting because of COVID-19 restrictions preventing in-person services.

However, from 60% of the seats in Jesmond Parish Church (JPC) you cannot see the front because of the building’s infrastructure, so cameras and screens have been a part of their services for decades.

This pre-existing technology enabled JPC to being live streaming sermons in 2017.

They broadcast on Clayton TV, a ministry of JPC’s YouTube channel.

Jesmond Parish Church’s 6:30pm sermon on October 15th, being streamed on the YouTube channel, Clayton TV. It shows key information from the church, the minister starting the sermon, the musical performers and the congregation singing. [Pictures by: Lauren Clarke]

Ettie Tate, 31, the video production co-ordinator at JPC, said: “55% of those that use [our] YouTube are over 65. So, there’s a lot of older people who just can’t get out of the house anymore that can still be a part of the church family because they can watch it online.”

Tate explained that with the livestreams they receive an additional 700 people a week attending their services, both in-person and online, with only 75% of these from the UK. JPC’s farthest flung regular viewer tunes in from Australia.

She added: “I just think it’s amazing that we get to help people all over the world even though it feels like we’re just doing our little bit in Jesmond.”

Out of Jesmond’s remaining churches, only St Andrew’s Church of Scotland (SACOS) and Newcastle Spiritual Evidence Society do not broadcast their services. When contacted, the Russian Orthodox Reformed Church and Our Lady and St Philip Neri Parish both failed to respond.

Cyril Goodhand, an elder at SACOS, said: “Before COVID, although we’ve got 103 members on our books, we were only getting [roughly] 30. We’re lucky now if we get 20.”

He added: “Our main purpose is to get people into church. It’s a far better service. If we started live streaming even some of the few that are here might just watch it on TV instead of getting dressed on Sunday morning.”

However, their shared minister does livestream his services from London which Jesmond’s congregation can access.

St Hilda’s Church (SHC) doesn’t livestream their own services but does make use of their sister church’s livestreams, St George’s Church.

Lesley Dinning, the 75-year-old churchwarden at SHC, said: “I don’t watch it every week but I do watch it when I’m away from home and [sometimes] when I’m working on the computer.”

She added: “It is different but that’s not to say that online isn’t good. [We have] a following of a lot of people from care homes and people that still feel vulnerable out there, people who couldn’t possibly survive if they got COVID.”

Although, when asked, Dinning said there was “no contest” between in-person and streamed services.

Jesmond United Reformed Church (JURC) also chooses not to broadcast their services online but does provide pre-recorded videos on YouTube.

JURC also uses iPads to deliver their services and card machine donation points.

The Harvest Festival service at Jesmond United Reformed Church. Reverend Ryan Sirmons delivered the service with an iPad, as seen in the second photo. [Pictures by: Lauren Clarke]

The decision to embrace technology – but only so far – was a deliberate decision, said Reverend Ryan Sirmons, from JURC. He told JesmondLocal: “When the technology gets in the way of you and interacting with another person then that becomes a problem.”