Kalispell pastor uses green screen for worship service

Many community boards, teachers and religious leaders have taken various approaches to continue reaching their audiences virtually after Gov. Steve Bullock initiated the COVID-19 shelter in place directive.

The Rev. Kevin Bueltmann of Trinity Lutheran Church in Kalispell had a particularly unique idea to bring sermons to his congregation by utilizing green-screen technology in his unfinished basement. Bueltmann had a trial run with the video-recording technique as he composed last week’s Palm Sunday service and he is using it again to record an Easter worship, which will go online via YouTube early Sunday morning.

Bueltmann explained that up until last week he was going into the church by himself to record the weekly service, but soon decided that he was still risking bringing home unnecessary germs. However, due to the response from his members, he wanted to keep the ambiance of preaching inside the church building without actually having to be there.

“I just had different people in my congregation that were saying, ‘oh it’s so nice that you did the service in the sanctuary,’” Bueltmann said. “That’s what they told me the first two weeks.”

After Trinity closed its doors nearly four weeks ago, the church decided to hire a construction company to work on a few repairs and remodeling projects. Bueltmann felt that with other people in the building, he should not be physically going there to record his sermons any longer.

“I’m like, this is kind of silly, why am I going to the church?” He said. “There’s people here and I could bring home all kinds of germs to my wife, who is high-risk because of some chronic illnesses that she deals with.”

So Bueltmann came up with an intriguing idea that would help him continue to bring well-received worship services to his congregation — use a green screen.

The pastor borrowed the screen and necessary accessories from the Trinity Lutheran School attached to the church. He said with only one other attempt at using the equipment nearly 13 years ago, it took some time to get it set up. But the tech-savvy pastor turned to YouTube for instructional videos, crafted his own teleprompter from a large tub and picture frame, and he was on his way to filming sermons from his own basement.

“[Technology] is sort of like my hobby, so when my hobby can intersect with my work and my ministry then it’s a real joy,” Bueltmann said.

Also, before he stopped going to the church building to record, with the help of a few women who are in charge of decorating the church for worship, he took pictures of the sanctuary furnished with colors of different church seasons. He is able to use these photos with the green screen and will have images to use for his recordings for many weeks to come.

THE PALM Sunday service turned out just as planned, and most people from the Trinity congregation did not suspect a thing until Bueltmann revealed his trick in the final minutes of the video. He said the only ones to suspect a green screen were a few kids and one older gentleman that thought it was odd the pastor never looked down at his notes.

Although Bueltmann is doing well with producing the videos and enjoys being able to edit various parts, he said it does feel fairly odd to be preaching to an empty wall.

Since the church congregation stopped meeting in person, he feels it is important to have many people contribute to the worship. Bueltmann has church members pre-record musical numbers, scripture readings and other various elements in order to include as many people as possible.

“Part of the thing I’m trying to do is involve people, because the thing is the church is not just the pastor, it’s the people and the pastor together. So I want them to not just see me every week, I want them to see the other people,” he added.

“We can connect with each other in a lot of different ways, electronically with online video methods,” he said.

The pastor expects to continue filming using the green screen until it is safe to return to normal church gatherings. His next service will be Easter Sunday, when he anticipates taking video clips of members in his congregation performing the same musical numbers at home and then blending them into a “virtual choir.”

The Trinity Lutheran Easter service will be posted online at trinitykalispell.org and the Trinity YouTube channel by 6 a.m. on Sunday.

Reporter Whitney England may be reached at 758-4419 or wengland@dailyinterlake.com