Attending online church services is meeting Frost Manor residents’ spiritual needs

The home’s 10 iPads are loaded with the link to St. Paul’s Anglican Church for residents to access online videos

Frost Manor residents and staff members have recently discovered a new way to use the Lindsay long-term care home’s 10 iPads.

While the devices have been used for a variety of resident programming since Frost Manor acquired them in 2019, the iPads are now being used to bring church services to residents, since the home is currently closed to visitors, including the volunteers who perform pastoral duties at the home, due to the ongoing global COVID-19 pandemic.

At a recent residents’ council meeting, some residents said they were missing not being able to attend the in-home church services that were run by volunteers from nearby St. Paul’s Anglican Church.

So Frost Manor life enrichment co-ordinator Lyndsay Burton went to the St. Paul’s Anglican Church website to see if the congregation was doing anything to connect with people.

“The first thing that came up was virtual services,” she tells The OMNIway.

Each of Frost Manor’s iPads has now been loaded with the link to St. Paul’s Anglican Church, which has videos of meditations and services that residents can access.

Residents have been visiting the church’s website to watch the videos of the services and meditations. The sermons are led by Rev. Warren Leibovitch, and residents enjoy being able to see a familiar face, Lyndsay says.

“We have got it so that we are still using social distancing, but (the residents) still have their spiritual contact and support when they need it,” Lyndsay says.

“I hope that a lot of other homes get the same idea because residents are missing (their church services).”

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