Which cheese curd would Jesus try?

SHAWANO — Many pastors are coming up with new ways to reach their flocks during the coronavirus pandemic, which has closed all schools and canceled church services.

The Rev. Scott Valentyn and his staff have found a way to keep students at Sacred Heart Catholic School learning and entertained at the same time. He appears in video visits, including one called “Father’s First Stay-cation,” doing a variety of things, including describing his clerical wear, trying to figure out fourth grade homework and giving reviews of cheese curds.

With just an iPhone and a couple of church leaders loosely doing a routine, the church has tried to find a lighter side to life at a time when people are unhappy and depressed about having to stay home. The first video was posted to Sacred Heart’s Facebook page March 26, and Valentyn plans to continue to do the daily videos until life gets back to normal.

“As this situation has been developing, we realized we’re going to have this much more time away from our students,” Valentyn said. “We wanted to remind them that we’re still here to stay connected. The nice thing is, even though this pandemic is a real pain, we have the technologies we have to stay connected, even to see each other’s faces and hear each other’s voices.”

The silly stuff is meant to keep the kids focused on the church, but Valentyn is hoping the light-hearted videos will lift up the spirits of his older parishioners.

“They still have a home here. We haven’t ceased to exist,” Valentyn said. “We’re still trying to power through and be a presence in our community.”

He added that the videos, which appear at noon Monday through Friday, help him to look foolish.

“I can’t figure out fourth grade math on the fly,” Valentyn said. “Middle school social studies, I don’t know the countries in east Asia, but it was funny.”

Teachers are starting to get involved as well, sending in videos of themselves with their families that Valentyn can include.

The favorite segment, though, is testing two different types of cheese curds. A microwave sits on the stage in case the curds need some help in restoring their squeak.

“We challenge people, if they don’t think we’re testing the right ones to send some in,” said Jim Lonick, a deacon with the parish who has been Valentyn’s sidekick in the videos. “We have someone actually going to Oconto to get the ones they think should be the best.”

The first school video received more than 8,600 views on Facebook, which surprised both Lonick and Valentyn.

“I still don’t know who the 8,600 are who are watching that,” Valentyn said.

Lonick said a few of the views might be from family members in Virginia, who got wind of what Sacred Heart was doing.

“It’s kind of gotten beyond where we thought,” Lonick said.

Lonick noted the videos also encourage people to stay connected with their fellow parishioners and the church itself, even though the pandemic is keeping people physically apart.

“We’re continuing to pay everybody on staff as though nothing has changed, and we still have overhead,” Lonick said.

Sacred Heart is also using technology to keep its services going. Mass livestreams every Sunday morning on Facebook, and Valentyn and Lonick are planning to continue with Holy Week services beginning with Palm Sunday, even if nobody is able to attend.

Following each regular Mass, Valentyn and Lonick are also doing “press conferences” to make up for the absence of live sports on television.

“As difficult and lonely as this situation might be, for some people more than others, thank God we’ve got the technology that we have, especially with email, Facebook, FaceTime,” Valentyn said.

Once the pandemic lifts, Valentyn and Lonick might try to keep the funny videos alive, albeit not as frequently.

“I can guarantee you it won’t be with the same frequency, because once things pick back up, there’s no way that five days a week we could do it,” Valentyn said, noting he has plenty on his plate, as does Lonick, who also serves as the church’s business manager. “Given the response we’ve received, we definitely want to put more stuff out.”

lpulaski@newmedia-wi.com