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.

Facebook for Faith: When we use social media for tithes, offerings, and stewardship

Facebook recently launched Faith for Facebook, a resource portal for religious leaders. The portal provides documentation, case studies, and how-to resources on Groups and Facebook Live, likely the most utilized resources among faith communities. Beneath the content on communities and video is a section on charitable giving: Fundraising on Facebook.

According to Facebook's documentation, Facebook covers "all fees for donations made on Facebook to charitable organizations." Churches that qualify as 501(c)(3) organizations could thus use Facebook Payments for fee-free fundraising. The sign-up process is brief: provide a recent bank statement, relevant contact information, and submit some paperwork.

Once enrolled in Facebook Payments, churches can add a Giving button their Facebook Page (which, of course, is different from its Facebook Group). When an individual donates on the Page, funds arrive in the church's bank account within a matter of weeks. According to the company, "If your organization is enrolled with Facebook Payments, then it will be paid out every two weeks. The funds will be paid to your organization as an ACH, or as a direct deposit to your organization's bank account."

Other than the free cost, the benefit to using Facebook for tithes and offerings is accessibility. The wide adoption of Facebook in a congregation makes it easier to collect tithes and offerings than on platforms like a church management system or standalone giving app. With seven out of ten Americans using Facebook, and five out of ten Americans visiting Facebook every day, it's likely that most members of a congregation already have a Facebook profile. Even older members of the congregation are likely to use the social media site. Baby Boomers and the Silent Generation are the fastest-growing adopters of the social media platform.

But as with all technology in a ministry context, there are questions that church leaders ought to address before directing congregants to donate through Facebook:

• Ethics - should you use social media for tithes and offerings?

• Exclusivity - should Facebook be the only platform for tithes and offerings?

• Liturgical integration - how might we remember that tithes and offerings are more than a transaction on a social media site?

As with all ministry technologies, church leaders ought to reflect on the ethical implications of using Facebook for donations. While processing fees are covered, a donation through Facebook gives the social media giant access to even more user data, in the form of credit card numbers and billing addresses. While this data is undoubtedly secure and protected from hackers, one wonders how Facebook could integrate this data into their ever-growing portfolio of user information. Still, without concrete examples of improper usage of user financial information, any expectation of corporate malfeasance is an assumption. The fact is, online tithes and offerings require church members to share their financial information with some organization, whether it be a bank, an app developer, or a social media company. It may be a net positive to route these donations through Facebook, which has far more cybersecurity resources than smaller app developers. We may not know what Facebook does with all of this data, but we can be confident that it is safe from hackers and breaches.

From a practical standpoint, we should also consider whether Facebook should be the only platform or one of many donation platforms. The more donation platforms a church utilizes, the more complexity it introduces for its treasurer and administrative staff. There is some value in using Facebook exclusively, particularly since it doesn't charge a donation fee. Yet, three out of ten Americans don't use Facebook, and it seems almost callous to suggest that someone needs to create a social media profile to tithe to the church. The best answer to the question of exclusivity, then, might be to use two platforms for donations: one that integrates with the church's website (such as Tithe.ly or Breeze CMS), and one that connects to a Facebook Page.

Ultimately, church leaders would do well to remember that tithes and offerings are always an act of Christian worship: giving back to God what God has first given to us. This is difficult to remember in the world of fast-paced online transactions. With the rise Venmo and PayPal, the exchange of funds through cyberspace has become truly effortless, even impersonal. While it's beneficial for churches to receive offerings through a click-to-donate button, it's essential to maintain a connection between stewardship and worship. Donating online to church is an act of worship. For this reason, churches should not abandon the offering during online or live-streamed services. Church leaders might even consider having a virtual blessing for click-to-donate buttons, on Facebook or on a website, marking that these technologies are in fact an expression of the community's worshipping life together.

Facebook for Faith's giving tool is a valuable resource for church leaders. The lack of transaction fees provide a compelling advantage when compared with other church offering technologies. While it might not be the only way to collect tithes and offerings, it might be the most useful way - particularly when it is connected with worship.

---

@ryanpanzer is the author of "Grace and Gigabytes."

---