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Clint Schnekloth

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Church “Growth” In The Age of Coronavirus

Church “Growth” In The Age of Coronavirus

Last updated on: July 15, 2020 at 9:39 am by Clint Schnekloth

Church “Growth” In The Age of Coronavirus 2020-07-15T09:39:22-05:00 Clint Schnekloth

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Let’s start with a story

I have a parishioner here in Arkansas highly active in our congregation. Last Sunday he posted a screenshot of a Zoom session. He was gathered in the Zoom with a variety of members of a little Lutheran congregation in Iowa, his parents church, and he was the guest lector.

This month I’m mostly on vacation. The week before vacation went out with a bang, three outdoor weddings in one week. In June, we welcomed 60 new members to our congregation via a blessing in the Live Stream service, and early in the month we held a socially-distanced baptismal service for eight children.

As far as I know, the times my parishioners have taken the most intentional risks during the pandemic have been to protest that #BlackLivesMatter, and hand deliver checks to Marshallese poultry workers dramatically affected by the pandemic and the large poultry company’s gross and racially-biased response to the shutdown.

At the same time, there’s a lot I don’t know right now. A few hundred people I normally see at least once a month if not more frequently I have not seen in person since March. I still see many of them in social media, but certainly not all.

I have statistics on the number of views of our Sunday live stream. But I don’t know how long viewers stay and watch, or what else they’re doing while they’re watching.

I have sent e-mails, made phone calls, texted, or Facebook messaged every household in our congregation at least every other week since quarantine started, but I haven’t hugged anyone or shared the peace.

Because I am no longer formally gathering in the church building with “members,” I find I have shifted to a much more “parish” model of ministry than even before the coronavirus. I’m focused as much as I can on living out the mission of the people of God as articulated by the faithful one, Jesus. And I’ve been trying to do it in all the communities I consider parish: my city, my neighborhood, my region, my nation, my social media network.

So what’s the data?

But like so many other pastors I have become untethered, to a degree, from the traditional resources I use to measure “engagement.” So I’ve been wondering what kind of data is emerging.

I’m offering a bit of data and analysis here. Take it for what it is: data observing some shifts in the middle of the pandemic. Some of this data is from way back at the beginning of June (!). Things change weekly if not daily, so keep that in mind.

Some of the data is from the U.K. Some from the United States. I tend to think the U.K. data is less biased. The Barna U.S. data is more self-interested. It’s not agenda-free. But it’s still some data, and so useful for insight and discussion.

https://comresglobal.com/church-services-reaching-multitudes-during-lockdown/

This first UK study tells us more people are engaging remotely than would usually attend in person. But of those who are engaging more, most were already connected to or interested in religion prior to the pandemic. In other words, remote forms of worship are engaging more of the already religious, but aren’t necessarily reaching those disconnected from religious life.

On the other hand, some research is indicating that a third of practicing Christians are not watching church services during lockdown. This particular statistic also has a generational component. Millenials have checked out at over 50%, Xers at 36% and Boomers at 26%.

We probably need to study this more, but it seems the same group (Millenials and younger) who engage social media natively have been actually more likely to disconnect from “traditional” Sunday morning worship offered remotely.

If I were to guess, this is not necessarily because the Millenials are less religious, and simply because they have a more diversified way of engaging their spirituality. But that’s just a conjecture.

Some other interesting call-outs: In addition, 14 per cent of practising Christians say they switched churches during the pandemic, while 18% of practicing Christians reported viewing worship services from multiple churches throughout the month.

If you want to dig really deep into the data, the same research company publish this extensive Christian Aid, Spirituality During Lockdown Public Omnibus Research – May 2020.

A few call-outs

Compared to Americans, UK respondents are not very religious and don’t pray much
That being said, respondents in the survey said they plan to spend more time in reflection and meditation (15%), 14% plan to increase their charity (note that typically in the study over all the baseline indication of those willing to change is about 4%), and a whopping 46% plan to spend more time with family and friends once the lockdown is lifted.

Now let’s look at the Barna report.

What Research Has Revealed About the New Sunday Morning

Some call-outs. First, half of churched adults have not streamed a worship service in the last month. This includes, significantly, a dip among regular attenders.

Personally as a pastor I’m sympathetic to these shifts, and I’m not convinced they are evidence of long-term change. Anecdotally, I know many families who attend worship in person regularly who simply have too much stress during the pandemic to make live-streaming a service a high priority. Also, anecdotally it is easier these days to lose track of time and forget what day, or hour, or week it is.

The shift to online worship has also increased regular churchgoers opportunities to participate in multiple worship service in different congregations: “Churched adults logging in for services usually opt for their regular church home (40%), though 23 percent have streamed services from a different church, essentially “church-hopping” online. One-third of practicing Christians (34% vs. 16% non-practicing Christians) has also virtually attended a church other than their own in the past month; indeed, we see one-quarter of practicing Christians (26% vs. 12% non-practicing Christians) notes that, during the pandemic, this has become typical of their online attendance. This might not be such a departure from pre-COVID-19 attendance habits, as 35 percent of churched adults and 26 percent of practicing Christians told us in December 2019 that they usually divide their attendance among two or more churches.”

I’d be curious to know whether or not some Christians are making use of this opportunity to attend interfaith services (Buddhist, Muslim, Jewish, etc.) or Christian traditions somewhat foreign to their own experience (Orthodox, Pentecostal, mainline Protestant, evangelical, depending on their past experience of worship). This could be a growth opportunity for many congregations and individual Christians.

15% of people multitask while streaming worship. But heck that’s not weird. We all multitask while watching movies or even just standing in line at the post office now.

Only 3 in 10 churchgoers have had a chance to be in contact with their religious leader this month. This statistic illustrated to me how hard the pandemic has made it for many pastors to do what they traditionally do. I’ve made use of social media resources to reach out to all of my parishioners in various ways, but if you serve in a part of the country where texting or social media are not typical or widely accessible, it becomes much more difficult to contact your people.

Finally, there is this most recent Barna study, that indicates one in three practicing Christians has stopped attending church during COVID-19.

“Some respondents share that, over four weeks, they streamed both their church’s online service as well as a different church’s service, perhaps taking advantage of the variety and surge of digital options. However, the plurality has stayed tuned in to their “home” church even at home; when looking for practicing Christians who are still and only attending their pre-COVID-19 church, we find that just over a third (35%) says this has been their course of action. Commitment extends to frequency of attendance during distancing as well; practicing Christians who stream the same church they attended before COVID-19 are significantly more likely than those who have switched churches to attend on a weekly basis (81% vs. 65%).

We see that very few (14%) have actually made a church switch amid the pandemic. It is more likely for a Christian to have stopped attending church altogether during the pandemic; in fact, 32 percent of practicing Christians have done just that. The remaining 18 percent of practicing Christians are viewing worship services from multiple churches throughout the month.”

As I mentioned above, how people decide to engage worship during the pandemic may or may not be indication of a longer planned pattern. I don’t think we know yet. Everyone responds differently in a crisis, and I tend to be on the side of not worrying overly much about worship attendance per se.

If Barna conducts another study, I’d love to hear the extent to which Christians in this moment understand themselves shifting their energies (rightly, in my opinion) into concrete forms of worship as neighbor love during this time: marching in protests, helping neighbors in need, raising funds for charities, participating in advocacy, staying home and resting to protect their neighbor’s health, and finding grounding ways of being spiritual in the world during this time, like gardening and exercise and naps.

Barna concludes, “We can’t determine the exact cause or direction of these correlations—and certainly, during a pandemic, the factors impacting well-being are many—but these are at least indications of a more challenging emotional climate for those who are not presently part of a church community. What we do know is that churchgoers, even those who have stopped regularly attending worship services during the pandemic, want support from a church community. Practicing Christians across the U.S. are seeking “prayer and emotional support” (68% who have moved churches during COVID-19, 52% who have stayed at their same church) and “a Bible-centered message of hope and encouragement” (44% who have stayed at their same church, 35% all other practicing Christians) from their churches.”

One in Three Practicing Christians Has Stopped Attending Church During COVID-19

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