Digital Ministry vs. Hybrid Ministry: What's the Difference?

Let's talk terminology.

In church leadership circles, we hear the words "digital" and "hybrid" with increasing frequency.

Often, they are used interchangeably. Occasionally, they are used in conjunction: "our digital-hybrid ministry offers..." As with any ministry model, there will be some ambiguity and overlap in their definitions.

But digital is not synonymous with hybrid. These are qualitatively different models, with vastly different implications for a congregation's resources, staffing, and ministry philosophy.

Prior to the pandemic, as many as 50% of congregations were analog churches. Without a website or presence on social media, they lacked the capacity, let alone the motivation, to collaborate with online communities for the sake of mission.

But many churches with some digital presence were actually analog. Their websites and digital content existed for one purpose: to bring people somewhere else. In this way, the websites of the analog church functioned as high-end billboards, directing users to buildings for synchronous gatherings, such as worship and Christian education. A church does not become a digital ministry simply by having a website or social media. It becomes a digital ministry by gathering around the Word of God in digital spaces.

Digital ministry, then, is about access to the grace of God, as experienced through digital forms of community. Livestream worship services are the definitive marker of the digital church. Book discussions via Zoom, board meetings via teleconferencing, and conversations on social media further illustrate life in a digital ministry. This was the model that 96% of pastors implemented during the pandemic, particularly during the lockdowns of spring and summer 2020, a time when there were few viable alternative models. Digital ministry, then, exists whenever web-based tools are used to gather the faithful around the Gospel message.

As lockdowns have eased, some have assumed that ongoing live streaming represents hybrid ministry. If a congregation gathers in the pews and on Zoom, for example, then it must be hybrid.

It's not quite that simple.

Hybrid ministry exists wherever bridges are built between online and in-person participants. To be a hybrid ministry is to create opportunities for collaboration, online and offline. A ministry can only be hybrid when online participants are actively involved in the work of the people.

Sitting passively in one's living room while watching a YouTube stream is not hybrid worship. Listening in on a Zoom conversation is not hybrid church leadership. Recording a Confirmation podcast is not hybrid Christian education.

To practice hybrid ministry is to create opportunities for those online to collaborate with, and even to lead, those gathered face-to-face.

Not every ministry needs to be hybrid. There will always be a place in the church for digital or even analog ministries. Hybrid ministry is a model that requires considerable inventiveness and careful resource allocation. For example, a hybrid ministry will likely use Zoom for worship. It's the only platform that allows for contribution and collaboration. A hybrid ministry also requires someone (ideally not the pastor) to cultivate digital conversation, intake prayer requests, and moderate the chat.

But the congregations that succeed in implementing hybrid ministry will remember something that digital and analog churches may tend to forget: that the grace of God abounds, that the Spirit is truly present wherever we are located, each and every moment of the day.

How to convince your council to invest in digital ministry

"How exactly will this grow our church?"

When church councils evaluate spending and investments, this is among the most frequently asked questions. Trained in a culture where growth is synonymous with effectiveness, today's council members often want to see the straight line from budget items to more members. This mindset aligns with the widespread equation for church growth that Andy Root critiques in The Congregation in a Secular Age:

Members + Programs = More Members.

According to this pervasive logic, the programs within a church exist to prime, or to increase the number of members. Digital ministry is, by extension, one such program, the objective of which is to continuously accelerate church growth.

As our buildings continue to reopen, council members will evaluate digital or hybrid ministry with this same framework. How will spending on apps like Zoom, Slack, and Vimeo bring more people to our congregation? How will investment in technologies like video conference rooms, PTZ cameras, and shotgun microphones increase our membership rolls?

Today's church leader could follow this line of questioning to build a case for digital ministry investment. There is data, after all, indicating that 50% of churches saw an increase in attendance during Spring 2020, a season when most congregations were testing online worship for the first time. And while online worship attendance has dipped since its pandemic peak, many congregations continue to see video views that outnumber pre-pandemic worship attendance.

But maybe focusing on church growth isn't the best way to convince your council to invest in digital ministry.

What if digital ministry is not about growth, but is instead about faithfulness?

What if hybrid ministry, which integrates the online with the offline, is less about increasing our numbers and more about sharing our faith stories?

Digital ministry connects with those who are physically, mentally, or spiritually unable to attend in-person worship or face-to-face faith formation, and countless congregations have stories of how they have reignited relationships with former members who moved away. Church leaders have stories of how they have provided pastoral care and spiritual counseling to congregants who continue to feel anxious and isolated. They have experiences of how a conversation, or a blog post, or a podcast has resonated with an unchurched Milllennial, one who still doesn't plan to attend worship, but appreciated the grace inherent in the message. They can tell you about how they became reacquainted with someone who was an active youth group member before leaving the church for several decades, or how they started conversations with nursing home residents who for years had felt isolated from their church community.

These are the stories that reveal the importance of digital ministry, and these are the stories that today's church leader needs to bring to the council. These are the perspectives that the treasurer needs to hear before finalizing the budget and signing the checks.

According to Pew Research, 28% of Americans (and 21% of mainline Protestants) have felt their faith strengthened as a result of the coronavirus outbreak. While it's difficult to isolate a causal factor in this data, the combination of global crisis plus the ease of accessing church content and community undoubtedly contribute to these trends.

Nobody knows how the pandemic will end. Nobody knows when the pews will fill up to their pre-pandemic levels, or whether online worship participation will remain a fixture in the congregation's life.

All we have for certain are the stories: the lived experiences of those who encountered the grace of God while navigating a time of global crisis.

How do you convince your church council to pay $30,000 to boost your WiFi speeds or $5,000 to set up a video-equipped classroom? You share how these investments have connected the community to a God who tends to show up, not just in our building, but wherever we are gathered. You tell a story of a God who is faithful in both sacred space and cyberspace.

When we stop seeking the connection between programs and members, between technology and growth, the digital church becomes more than an investment. It becomes a community.

Hybrid ministry: How to design a multi-site, multi-platform worship service

The most demanding role in any congregation may be that of the worship planner. Each week, the worship planner integrates unchanging aspects of the liturgy with a constantly changing and accelerating world, a task that was demanding enough before our churches went online.

Today, the worship planner is tasked not just with crafting a liturgy, but with balancing the needs of both in-person and online worship attendees. While there are many aspects of digital worship for the planning team to consider, three are particularly important for a multi-platform worship service attended simultaneously by online and in-person worshippers.

A multi-platform, hybrid service requires language that welcomes the online and in-person worshipper. The low-tech requirement of inclusive language is the easiest aspect of hybrid worship. Yet it is also the most critical. Without inclusive language, the online attendee will always feel like a second-tier attendee, one who has a back-row seat to an event taking place elsewhere. Each component of the liturgy provides an opportunity to extend hospitality to the virtual worship attendee. Everything from the greeting to the sermon to the prayers and announcements could include a word of acknowledgment and affirmation for those in physical and virtual space.

An inclusive greeting reminds all who are gathered that we are the church, wherever we find ourselves for the service. Inclusive and hospitable announcements include directions for connecting physically and virtually (Zoom links, URLs, QR codes, etc) to each aspect of the church's life together. Inclusive preaching and prayers specifically lift up the concerns of those who are gathered online, inviting virtual attendees to contribute prayer petitions.

The worship planner need not mention "digital" or "hybrid" in each piece of the liturgy. But the service necessitates a consistent thread of hospitable language. Each week, the worship planner should highlight where these threads will be most visible.

Hybrid worship also requires the creative use of transitional space. An in-person liturgy includes moments of stillness, waiting, and musical reflection. We pass the plates as we listen to special music. We process to the table for the Eucharist. In some denominations and traditions, we sit in revered silence until the liturgy begins. These moments may or may not transfer well to an online worship experience. But if we are seeking to do hybrid worship, where we build bridges between virtual and physical, we must address what these moments look like online.

The worship planner isn't so much tasked with eliminating these moments, so much as they are called to think about what they look like in cyberspace. Perhaps during the Eucharist, online attendees view a slideshow of images from the church's life together. Or during the offering, virtual worshippers could watch a video about the impact of tithes and offerings on the church's work in the community. Each week, the worship planner asks the question of what the transitional aspects of worship ought to look like online. Then, the planner considers how to adapt just one of these transitions to the needs and expectations of online worship.

Communion at the (pre-Covid) Episcopal National Cathedral. The YouTube stream includes beautiful shots of the cathedral's windows as music plays.

Lastly, a multi-platform, multi-site worship requires some meaningful involvement from the virtual body of Christ. If those who worship online are only offered the opportunity to passively watch a live stream, then they cannot contribute to the work of the people. Failing to involve online attendees creates a second-tier virtual worship experience. Those gathered face-to-face join together for liturgy, or the work of the people. Those gathered online sit and watch.

When planning virtual worship leadership, start with small acts of involvement before designing more complex leadership roles. Simple involvement might resemble a prayer request submitted via SMS or social messaging, or an invitation to respond to the sermon via Facebook or YouTube comments. Once the worship planner establishes a pattern of virtual involvement, they might create opportunities for virtual worship leadership roles: lectors, cantors, presiding ministers, even preachers. Not every service needs a lector who records their reading offsite, perhaps at a location that complements the reading. Not every Sunday needs the prayers of the people read via Zoom. Still, the extent to which the worship planner creates opportunities for involvement is the extent to which worship becomes a truly hybrid experience.

The questions confronting today's worship planner are seemingly innumerable. There are questions of resourcing and staffing, software and hardware, production and distribution. In such a chaotic environment, one might lose focus on the art of liturgical development. By prioritizing inclusivity, transitional space, and involvement each week, today's worship planner can maintain a focus on liturgy - while leading through a period of acceleration and re-invention.