Learning from the Streets

As one of the recent users of the Zoom software, for video conferencing and chat, I was asked by them over the weekend to take part in the trial for their new Christian Zoom plug in, available as an Easter treat this year. They told me it ‘will revolutionise meetings involving christians’ and (after their statistics for usage had gone up on what was a usually quiet conference day,  Sundays) , Zoom are also confident that the plug in will add a depth to Sunday zoom church services, bringing greater authenticity never seen before to the platform. So naturally I was keen to take part, especially as someone who has read and reviewed a number of new resources and books in the last few years.

My early impressions are good, and Ive been given special dispensation to share the features with you, here are my thoughts on them; 

1. The virtual Galilee backgrounds work really well, you’ll soon be able to choose from Egyptian pyramid, Red Sea, Solomons Temple and the foot of the cross for a background, no more sample island , northern lights or from space.
2. In addition there’s Biblical animations, you can select for various animals like camels or donkeys to wander across the front of your screen, you can have a moving crowd around you, so you can be ‘like Jesus’. The option of being able to have frogs and locusts swarm around you on the screen has been pushed back until 2021, for sensitivity reasons.
3. If there are more than 2 people in the gathering, a third screen will open with the face of Jesus is in it, this is the ‘where two or more are gathered feature’. Unlike the background you cannot chose what this face will look like, after all the makers suggest that users cannot create Jesus into our own image. It will give Jesus a room into your zoom, the silent chair at the table.
4. Along with visual and animation, there is also a voice projection unit in the Christian Zoom plug in – so, now you can sound like your favourite bible character. I have tried Moses, Stephen and Philip, they are pretty authentic, Peter is often muffled because his foot is sometimes in his mouth. Eve, Rahab, Naomi, Esther and Ruth can all be selected, as well as Mary, Mary Magdalene and Mary and Martha, so everyones favourite Mary is included, and helpful in a zoom meeting, to distinguish by voices.
5. The instant prayer reaction I though was pretty good. Theres now a prayer emoji symbol in the reactions. So, whenever someone says something in the meeting that is a moment to pray for, you can select the emoji, and this causes a prayer to go straight from the screen to the very heart of Jesus. It will also send you a reminder in your google calendar so you’ll be able to remember to actually pray for it, a day later. Zoom are working on a bonus feature in which, for an extra subscription, when more than 2 are gathered, the prayer is heard by the Jesus in the room, and before the end of the meeting there will be a response made in the new ‘God chats’ feature. I haven’t seen this, yet, but it will revolutionise intercessory Sunday church prayers, Im sure.
6. Theres going to be an ‘awkward fellowship’ button which will help participants replicate the slightly awkwardness of conversations over coffee afterwards in the zoom coffee time.  By pressing it, your screen will display a designated message of your choosing, like ‘im having a silent prayer time’ or ‘yes id love a coffee, but maybe not the chat please’ , for the self aware it could say ‘thanks but im just heading for some introvert restoration time’
7. The predictive response button, will be especially helpful, I think, especially in churches with more liturgical orders of service, set this to ‘AUTO’ and it will automatic lip sync and voice you in the right places, to say phrases like ‘peace be with you’, ‘and also with you’ , ‘in the name of Christ’ – the advanced plug in will apparently feature 5 different versions of the Lords Prayer, and for an extra subscription will include; ‘the grace’, ‘All the time’ (response to God is good – rarely used in 2020 but for historical circumstances may be applied at this time). The “MANUAL’ setting gives you the words on the screen to automatically say out loud.
8. The share button is about to have two new exciting, innovative, passionate features. Instead of just sharing powerpoint screens, you can now do one of two new features, especially useful in the church zoom services (of which there are guidelines)
   1. You can click the share button and using the options, select ‘The Peace’ – and this will automatically give everyone else in the meeting a handshake, kiss or hug and a moment of deep filled peace.
   2. The second is probably an option that most christians will ignore, but it will always be there, Zoom call it the ‘New Testament church’ feature, in which you can select it, and everything you own will be shared amongst all of you, and all the remainder given to the poor.  I did suggest to zoom that this was a wasted additional feature and that they could spend more time investing in more user friendly software, but they disagreed, saying that there need to be a higher ideal in the feature to give the christian plug in an ethical framing.
9. I must admit I found it annoying but, they decided to add a feature on there ‘Schedule meeting’ button. Every time I pressed to schedule a meeting with friends, family, colleagues, a reminder popped up and asked me whether I had done my quiet time today. After scheduling three meeting in one day, the reminder changes to ‘I hope you spend as much time praying as you do zooming’ . It was so annoying I just went onto Skype instead, so if zoom can switch this off, that’d be good. My hunch is that they’re so desperate for money since all the free accounts that you might need to pay an extra subscription to switch off this almost guilt trip button. It just gets boring when socialising feels like a crime.
10. There a new rating system that can also be used in church meetings – where there’s a vote required, then you can select a number out of 10 to indicate your pleasure of the motion being carried, under no circumstance, do zoom recommend that this is used at the end of a service to rate the sermon. It is merely for collective voicing an opinion in a business meeting.
11. Zoom inform me that they’re working on a worship music app plug in, which could work in one of two ways, either the voice activated system will immediately select the most popular you tube clip of the instrumental of that song (an even higher premium will disable the pre music you tube adverts) , the other alternative is the the ‘SONG PRO’ catalogue will be linked to zoom and so as the song is requested, the instrumental is played, direct to your speakers.
12. Whilst the issue of communion has fixated many since the advent of zoom churches this weekend. The makers of zoom christian pro, realised that in the great commission that communion was barely mentioned – and that ‘making disciples and baptising’ was more important. So, to satisfy a range of positions on baptism, and making it more inclusive, the new Holy Water feature is added. At the appropriate time, and it is completely indiscriminate, a jet of water will shoot from the zoom camera into the room, sprinkling the receivers with the Holy H20. Those involved in full immersion baptisms may want to  position the laptop in the kitchen or bathroom to make cleaning easier. And so, it is imperative that the right person is lined up by the screen, forehead at the ready, or standing well back for an almighty soaking. Zoom will not be responsible for any accidental second or third baptisms, and the theological disharmony this may cause, they say that they are trying to be inclusive and it is up to the individual to be positioned, they are merely providing a service,  so they say.

Now onto the not so good parts of Christian Zoom:

1. The denomination button, whilst initially a good idea, can be really tiresome, I haven’t used all the features of each, but there’s over 50,000 options, you could be there for days. The ones that I chose gave me these features:

Brethren button ; where only the men could speak, though if there were children present the women could.

The Charismatic button, in which the voice commands could immediate turn into tongues, but this got really complicated when trying to devise the Sunday school teaching material.

There was also the anglican button, which restricted use of zoom to married people only. I have given my feedback to Zoom on this, and suggested that whilst these stereotypes are often true, that each denomination has a number of strengths too and shouldn’t be castigated in such a way.

As I said I only tried three of these, i’m sure there is the denomination for you, my recommend is to try a few, settle down, and most likely you’ll not use the button again.

2. Zoom tithe – I think they need to work on this, whilst I can understand the embracing of technology, having there ‘default tithe’ button set to on, meant that 10% of what was in my bank account was tithed straight from my contactless card everytime I was part of a service. Im sure that they meant well by this feature, but it needs a bit more work. There is potential but taking 10% every time without asking…

3. Zoom youth – again, it meant well, but when Zoom automatically turned everything the vicar said into a rap, even the notices, then im not sure this was the way to go to make it youth friendly, probably needs a little work and consultation.

As you can see from the above, new Christian Zoom, will revolutionise the meetings of christians and also the proliferation of zoom church services, with these additional features you really will be able to give Jesus room to be into your zoom.

Thank you to ZOOM software for giving me this access and opportunity to review this new product.

In a remarkable twist, new christian zoom will be available today, April 1st.