Official guideline for sacrament before or after webcast?

[mevans]

Is there an official guideline from the church to do the sacrament before or after the streamed sacrament meeting service? I've seen mention of this, but haven't seen anything official. The letter I was able to read at the letters site didn't specifically say anything about it, but I don't have a bishopric/stake presidency calling, so it's possible if there's an official guideline it could only be available to people with those callings. If there's an official guideline I want to help our stake be aware of it. This was our stake's first day of streaming sacrament meetings and apparently some wards did the sacrament in the middle of the meeting and stopped the webcast during it.

[russellhltn]

It's a letter from the First Presidency, dated September 11, 2020 titled "Safely Engaging in Church Meetings and Activities". The same letter can be found in the Newsroom

Since a sacrament broadcast does not include the administration of the sacrament, consider initiating the broadcast following the sacrament, or alternatively, holding the sacrament portion of the meeting last, so those viewing the sacrament meeting virtually see the program without interruption.

[lajackson]

So the option goes either way. And since there are three ways of doing it, the three wards I helped today each did it a different way.

Joining after the sacrament makes a start time difficult to determine. Doing it in the middle leaves viewers wondering what may have happened to the webcast. But even with an announcement ending the meeting and then doing the sacrament, a number of members stayed connected to the webcast to see if it would return. It did not, of course.

One ward using OBS put up a slide saying that the webcast would resume at the completion of the ordinance of the sacrament. They did it in the middle at the normal place. That worked well, but I still think that the most effective use of member time is to have the meeting, end the webcast, and then do the sacrament.

Bishops have keys in all shapes and sizes. One bishop decided not to webcast and told everyone to come to church when they could. And the stake president agreed with him. He does have a younger ward.

[hicksticks2001]

Our stake received instruction from the Utah Area Presidency saying that the Sacrament Ordinance would be after the Sabbath Day Worship Service was over.

From our stake's perspective, there is no longer a "Sacrament Meeting" - we have our Sacrament Ordinance and we have our Sabbath Worship Service - which are two separate things. We are doing the Sacrament Ordinance after the worship service is over because that's our understanding of what the Area Presidency has asked us to do in our area.

[sbradshaw]

But even with an announcement ending the meeting and then doing the sacrament, a number of members stayed connected to the webcast to see if it would return. It did not, of course.

In our ward, we have a closing song and closing prayer before turning off the webcast – then we do the sacrament. The closing song and prayer probably help people watching remotely to feel that the meeting's over. Of course, that passes the burden of knowing what's going on to the people in the building, who might instinctively stand up after the closing song and prayer.