Great article! Could the “less educated” piece be downstream of the age piece? In other words, virtual church is great for people who are retired/homebound/older, and their generational cohort just happened to have less higher education than the younger cohorts.
To offer something of a feedback: I don't know if I'm an outlier or if there are many others like me. I regularly attend church virtually and in person, but at different churches. Reading this article, it says nothing at all whether those who attend services are attending virtually and in-person at the same church. I attend in person a local church in my home town because geographically I'm not close to a church of the denomination I baptized into. I attend virtually a church of my denomination in another state because I like the pastor there, and they have excellent online worship services. I belong to the church out of state as an official member, and have joined in on their online small groups. The pastor in the out-of-church state knows me even though I've never visited that state. I'm also active in the church I attend in person because I feel I'm part of that community too. That's why neither experience negates the other for me.
My local church offers virtual services too but I never attend those because I'm regularly there in person and I don't need to repeat the worship, although sometimes I watch the recorded sermons if I missed church and wanted to know what the pastor preached that day.
I tend to listen to teachings that offer more insights and clarity in addition to my home church. I am somewhat disabled so attending in person is often difficult.
I would suspect that your level of involvement with a remote church is on the extreme side, but my wife does a milder form of this: she has certain preachers that she likes -- some nationally known, some more local or regional -- and she'll often watch a few of their sermons online each week. As for me, I'm more a reader than a listener, so I'd much rather read a classic sermon than listen to a contemporary one. But like you, I'll still fill in a sermon I missed at our local church, more for conversational purposes and to be able to keep up with the current sermon series.
I imagine there is a sort of "winner-take-all" effect for primarily online attendance, as with anything that is naturally scalable to a mass audience. People who aren't just filling in sermons from their local church will tend to be drawn towards the sermons from the best sermonizers.
But then, we also now live in an age where you can get online sermons from a wide range of churches. Not so long ago, all you could hope to hear was a televangelist, which was usually an extremely emotive Prosperity Gospeler. I think the opening up of this space to other sorts of churches is probably a good development for everyone except extremely emotive Prosperity Gospelers.
When we use the word "online" or even "virtual", we immediately think of what most of us regular attenders started doing in March 2020, and imagine an audience with many digital natives. But then we remember that church services have been on TV for decades and the demographics of the audience makes more sense in that light.
While you mightn't find survey data pre 2020 that uses the words 'church' and 'online', you may even find TV viewing statistics for particular TV programs.
The data are fascinating. The characterization in the narrative seems biased against online worship. What I see is this: among Protestants, nearly as many people are online-only as there are in-person only. 18-29 year olds are nearly twice as likely to prefer online worship compared to 50-64 year olds (will this preference continue to grow?) Seems to me this strongly validates online worship as a ministry initiative.
Wonderful article! Thank you for sharing all of this information.
Part of my interest is the evolving nature of Christian spirituality in America. I suspect that part of what we're going to see (and I have no data to back this up yet) is a move from a traditional understanding of a worship service to what I will call simply "online experiences". Think smaller groups of people getting together for spiritual growth and development in one form or another. This could range from discussion groups to spiritual exercise groups.
So when I think about the move to online, I think the equivalent of in-person worship isn't an online streaming service. I think it's more of an online spiritual community where in some form or another people are engaging others in their pursuit for spiritual growth, which may or may not include a worship service.
I would be very interested in knowing (and I realize there's probably no data on this) whether people are engaged in spiritually-oriented groups (including Facebook groups, spiritual coaching communities, etc) who are not also regularly attending a church. For example, I lead a very small Lectio Divina Online group. Half also attend church, and the other half do not. I'm also aware of another multi-faith group that has gathered online, and in that group were a few ex-vangelicals who who (presumably) felt nourished spiritually there.
Again, thank you for your insights. Truly wonderful article.
For our family, we do online when we don't feel up for in-person, for whatever reason. It reinforces the idea that online services are for the already involved people. But I hope that doesn't mean that churches will get rid of it. Online worship seems to be now just another option or benefit that churches provide their members.
The discussion in the post is all about "online" attendance. How would people answer this question if they only watched a televangelist, say, Jimmy Swaggart, on TV. I'd expect the characteristics of his viewers to be similar to those classed here as "online only"
Hi, just wondering about the flip side impact: are people who attend online more likely to attend in-person. I think online worship maintains engagement and is a catalyst for in-person worship. IOW, let's say someone has a busy schedule and can only attend in person once or twice a month, I believe that the ability to watch online maintains a sense of engagement that keeps them from disconnecting from the congregation. You mentioned in-person as a catalyst for online, but what about the other direction?
One of our members made a really incisive comment: "I prefer in person worship, but it often isn't enough better than the online experience to get our family out the door on Sunday morning." Preference is one thing. The COST of the preference is another thing. In person worship comes at a greater "price" than online. You have to be up, showered, dressed, and travel to get to in person. You can worship online while having breakfast. The cost factor often gets left out of these surveys. I prefer lobster to McDonald's. Guess which one I eat more often.
On Passover's Sunday, out of boredom, I drove the usual route I took most days to escape from my house during peak Covid lockdown. Being Passover, I could not stop for coffee anywhere, so I just drove. It being peak worship time for the Christians, as I drove past each church along my route, I slowed down to look at their parking lots. Catholic Church and Baptist Church closest to my house seemed pretty full. Other parking lots, of my sample of ten or so much less crowded. And the places to have breakfast all pretty well attended, far in excess of what the churches attracted. Did not go past golf courses or YMCAs on this route. When I got home, approx 11:20, I looked at the web sites of the places I had passed, hoping for some live stream to see how many people were present and how that compared to my synagogue on a Saturday. Few live streams, all focused on the pastor at the time. All the congregations had a Zoom option but I don't know how well that supplemented those in live attendance, which I estimated by how crowded the parking area looked. Not very good data, like Ryan's but it left something of an impression.
As an orthodox synagogue, we do not use electronics on the Sabbath so our services are live only. There are occasions of worship when Zoom is permitted and we offer hybrid for Rosh Hodesh services. I do not know if they have a dedicated attendance for this. I've not signed in, not based on convenience as much as I really don't want to be obligated for a very long Morning Service with Torah Reading and Hallel when I could be doing something else, irrespective of whether I would have to transport myself there and back. Much like my Christian neighbors who will drive to IHOP in big numbers and endure slow service but not sign onto Zoom for worship.
Did any of the questions to the survey respondents ask WHY they’d watch live-streamed services? I know for my family (we fall in the attending in-person services and other church meetings frequently category), it’s usually because of illness that we watch the livestream on Sunday or catch up with it later in the week. It could also be because of weekend trips.
So the "pew" in the code, does that mean the data came from Pew? I'm part of on online community that is full of online only and hybrid (online and in person) churches, and we'd like to understand how this was gathered, so that we are better informed. It is outside of our shared experience, but we do understand that we might be outliers, too. Thanks!
Great article! Could the “less educated” piece be downstream of the age piece? In other words, virtual church is great for people who are retired/homebound/older, and their generational cohort just happened to have less higher education than the younger cohorts.
To offer something of a feedback: I don't know if I'm an outlier or if there are many others like me. I regularly attend church virtually and in person, but at different churches. Reading this article, it says nothing at all whether those who attend services are attending virtually and in-person at the same church. I attend in person a local church in my home town because geographically I'm not close to a church of the denomination I baptized into. I attend virtually a church of my denomination in another state because I like the pastor there, and they have excellent online worship services. I belong to the church out of state as an official member, and have joined in on their online small groups. The pastor in the out-of-church state knows me even though I've never visited that state. I'm also active in the church I attend in person because I feel I'm part of that community too. That's why neither experience negates the other for me.
My local church offers virtual services too but I never attend those because I'm regularly there in person and I don't need to repeat the worship, although sometimes I watch the recorded sermons if I missed church and wanted to know what the pastor preached that day.
I tend to listen to teachings that offer more insights and clarity in addition to my home church. I am somewhat disabled so attending in person is often difficult.
This is a super interesting question! I'd love to see some data that might offer an answer.
I would suspect that your level of involvement with a remote church is on the extreme side, but my wife does a milder form of this: she has certain preachers that she likes -- some nationally known, some more local or regional -- and she'll often watch a few of their sermons online each week. As for me, I'm more a reader than a listener, so I'd much rather read a classic sermon than listen to a contemporary one. But like you, I'll still fill in a sermon I missed at our local church, more for conversational purposes and to be able to keep up with the current sermon series.
I imagine there is a sort of "winner-take-all" effect for primarily online attendance, as with anything that is naturally scalable to a mass audience. People who aren't just filling in sermons from their local church will tend to be drawn towards the sermons from the best sermonizers.
But then, we also now live in an age where you can get online sermons from a wide range of churches. Not so long ago, all you could hope to hear was a televangelist, which was usually an extremely emotive Prosperity Gospeler. I think the opening up of this space to other sorts of churches is probably a good development for everyone except extremely emotive Prosperity Gospelers.
When we use the word "online" or even "virtual", we immediately think of what most of us regular attenders started doing in March 2020, and imagine an audience with many digital natives. But then we remember that church services have been on TV for decades and the demographics of the audience makes more sense in that light.
While you mightn't find survey data pre 2020 that uses the words 'church' and 'online', you may even find TV viewing statistics for particular TV programs.
The data are fascinating. The characterization in the narrative seems biased against online worship. What I see is this: among Protestants, nearly as many people are online-only as there are in-person only. 18-29 year olds are nearly twice as likely to prefer online worship compared to 50-64 year olds (will this preference continue to grow?) Seems to me this strongly validates online worship as a ministry initiative.
Wonderful article! Thank you for sharing all of this information.
Part of my interest is the evolving nature of Christian spirituality in America. I suspect that part of what we're going to see (and I have no data to back this up yet) is a move from a traditional understanding of a worship service to what I will call simply "online experiences". Think smaller groups of people getting together for spiritual growth and development in one form or another. This could range from discussion groups to spiritual exercise groups.
So when I think about the move to online, I think the equivalent of in-person worship isn't an online streaming service. I think it's more of an online spiritual community where in some form or another people are engaging others in their pursuit for spiritual growth, which may or may not include a worship service.
I would be very interested in knowing (and I realize there's probably no data on this) whether people are engaged in spiritually-oriented groups (including Facebook groups, spiritual coaching communities, etc) who are not also regularly attending a church. For example, I lead a very small Lectio Divina Online group. Half also attend church, and the other half do not. I'm also aware of another multi-faith group that has gathered online, and in that group were a few ex-vangelicals who who (presumably) felt nourished spiritually there.
Again, thank you for your insights. Truly wonderful article.
For our family, we do online when we don't feel up for in-person, for whatever reason. It reinforces the idea that online services are for the already involved people. But I hope that doesn't mean that churches will get rid of it. Online worship seems to be now just another option or benefit that churches provide their members.
The discussion in the post is all about "online" attendance. How would people answer this question if they only watched a televangelist, say, Jimmy Swaggart, on TV. I'd expect the characteristics of his viewers to be similar to those classed here as "online only"
Hi, just wondering about the flip side impact: are people who attend online more likely to attend in-person. I think online worship maintains engagement and is a catalyst for in-person worship. IOW, let's say someone has a busy schedule and can only attend in person once or twice a month, I believe that the ability to watch online maintains a sense of engagement that keeps them from disconnecting from the congregation. You mentioned in-person as a catalyst for online, but what about the other direction?
One of our members made a really incisive comment: "I prefer in person worship, but it often isn't enough better than the online experience to get our family out the door on Sunday morning." Preference is one thing. The COST of the preference is another thing. In person worship comes at a greater "price" than online. You have to be up, showered, dressed, and travel to get to in person. You can worship online while having breakfast. The cost factor often gets left out of these surveys. I prefer lobster to McDonald's. Guess which one I eat more often.
This paper found that in person worship leads to lower feelings of psychological distress.
There was no impact at all among worshippers who were attending online, no matter what frequency of their attendance.
https://academic.oup.com/socrel/article-abstract/84/3/292/7044643
I wrote about my experience as an on-line worshiper here: https://www.friendsjournal.org/membership-at-a-distance/
My preference would be in-person worship, but I'm grateful that online exists.
On Passover's Sunday, out of boredom, I drove the usual route I took most days to escape from my house during peak Covid lockdown. Being Passover, I could not stop for coffee anywhere, so I just drove. It being peak worship time for the Christians, as I drove past each church along my route, I slowed down to look at their parking lots. Catholic Church and Baptist Church closest to my house seemed pretty full. Other parking lots, of my sample of ten or so much less crowded. And the places to have breakfast all pretty well attended, far in excess of what the churches attracted. Did not go past golf courses or YMCAs on this route. When I got home, approx 11:20, I looked at the web sites of the places I had passed, hoping for some live stream to see how many people were present and how that compared to my synagogue on a Saturday. Few live streams, all focused on the pastor at the time. All the congregations had a Zoom option but I don't know how well that supplemented those in live attendance, which I estimated by how crowded the parking area looked. Not very good data, like Ryan's but it left something of an impression.
As an orthodox synagogue, we do not use electronics on the Sabbath so our services are live only. There are occasions of worship when Zoom is permitted and we offer hybrid for Rosh Hodesh services. I do not know if they have a dedicated attendance for this. I've not signed in, not based on convenience as much as I really don't want to be obligated for a very long Morning Service with Torah Reading and Hallel when I could be doing something else, irrespective of whether I would have to transport myself there and back. Much like my Christian neighbors who will drive to IHOP in big numbers and endure slow service but not sign onto Zoom for worship.
Very helpful data and analysis as usual Ryan.
My church is virtual only right now because we can’t afford a space to rent.
Did any of the questions to the survey respondents ask WHY they’d watch live-streamed services? I know for my family (we fall in the attending in-person services and other church meetings frequently category), it’s usually because of illness that we watch the livestream on Sunday or catch up with it later in the week. It could also be because of weekend trips.
So the "pew" in the code, does that mean the data came from Pew? I'm part of on online community that is full of online only and hybrid (online and in person) churches, and we'd like to understand how this was gathered, so that we are better informed. It is outside of our shared experience, but we do understand that we might be outliers, too. Thanks!
Here's a link to the original data:
https://thearda.com/data-archive?fid=ATPW117&tab=1
Thank you!
Was just doing my own informal survey about this issue so the timing of this post was perfect. Thanks.