Tools like video projectors and PA systems might not seem like radical innovations for some churches, but they’ve had a big impact on small congregations and Christian gatherings in Italy.

The equipment is used both in church buildings, and by believers meeting in each other’s homes.  Reverend Nicola Tedoldi, from the Methodist Church of Parma-Mezzani and Cremona-Piacenza, reports that it’s helping small communities to “keep alive the groups of sisters and brothers (even from churches of different denominations) that were formed during the long period of the pandemic and to continue activities otherwise impossible without the help of these technological means.”

 This investment in new technology was made possible by financial support from the Fund for Mission in Europe (FMiE), which is contributed to by Irish Methodists.

 Reverend Nicola Tedoldi, from the Italian Methodist Church, writes:

In March 2022, the OPCEMI decided to activate a project for the technological improvement of local Methodist churches, financially in collaboration with the Fund for Mission in Europe (FMiE). A project that had been designed during the first phase of the pandemic period of COVID-19 to help churches to support telematics activities. Once the acute phase of the pandemic was over, OPCEMI believed it was important to ensure that churches that had used technological means to overcome the inability to carry out in-presence activities could continue to use them to help people still struggling with a return to normalcy and also not to interrupt the activities of extended groups that were formed through the use of technological means. The Piacenza-Cremona and Parma-Mezzani churches have both benefited from the grant to purchase technological means that can be useful now to facilitate mixed-mode activities. These means include video-projectors to be used during worship and Bible Studies to join people present in the church premises and those at their own home, amplifiers and microphones to be able to have a best interaction between groups in different locations. Thanks to this grant, small communities like ours, will have the opportunity to keep alive the groups of sisters and brothers (even from churches of different denominations) that were formed during the long period of the pandemic and to continue activities otherwise impossible without the help of these technological means. We are grateful to OPCEMI and the FMiE for this opportunity.