When Rally Day is canceled: Confronting the ongoing church attendance dilemma

Half of all churches experienced an increase in worship attendance in spring 2020. At least, that's what surveys from the Barna Group suggest. Most church leaders can attest to a similar trend in their congregation. As lockdowns tightened during the early pandemic, church-goers with little else to do flocked to online worship, peaking on Easter Sunday and Christmas Eve 2020.

And then the Zoom fatigue began. As the reality of a long pandemic set in, online attendance began to wane. Even as churches reopened their sanctuaries on a limited basis, cumulative attendance continued its decline.

One congregation in my town had over 700 households join for worship online on Christmas Eve. Today, attendance is down to a few dozen worshipping online, with in-person attendance less than half of its pre-pandemic levels. With widespread concerns over unvaccinated children and the delta variant, as well as the reintroduction of mask mandates, some local congregations have opted to cancel rally day festivities in September. Some church leaders have shelved plans for grand re-opening celebrations targeted for the first Sunday after Labor Day, a day that was once thought to be the harbinger of a brighter and mask-free future.

These challenges can, at times, seem unbeatable. In a time like this, today's church leader might try desperately to reverse the slide in attendance. But the headwinds of this pandemic moment may prove to be too strong.

This may not be the time for a well-conceived marketing campaign or a revamped outreach strategy. Instead, this may simply be a time for lament, introspection, and presence.

First, grieve the losses. Many congregations have acknowledged the grief and pain associated with the widespread loss of life during the pandemic. Some have acknowledged the hardship associated with not being able to gather at the altar for communion or to gather in large groups outside of worship. Each of these merits a word of lament from a Christian community, from scriptures, through preaching, and in prayer. As congregations look towards an uncertain fall season, some are planning for a service of lament on All Saint's Day, looking to culminate the longings and losses of the pandemic in the mode of the psalmist. But in a sense, grieving the losses of the past has its limits. Our news cycle, and our day-to-day lives, are so imbued with loss that individual lament has become habitual. We might, therefore, require something more than collectively grieving what has been lost. What we really need now is an expression of the specific type of loss that comes from unrealized hope.

So we acknowledge the pain that comes with unmet aspirations. Now more than ever, our churches are communities with an uncertain future. When 2021 began, we saw a glimmer of hopeful expectation on the horizon, a tantalizing promise that the fall could bring a restoration of what had been lost. In January, I saw an opportunity for churches to innovate, to come up with a new way of doing ministry, and being church community that could be fully implemented come September. The delta variant has tamped down these opportunities. The growth we had anticipated in September may be far less than what we had hoped for. While some churches are moving ahead with their plans, others are expressing dismay in that these predictions have proven unreliable. At best, our grand reopenings in September will be cautious and tenous. Through scripture, preaching, and prayer, we are called not just to lift up the losses of the past, but to confront the unrealized hope that so many of us carried into the new year. Just as the psalmist lifted up the laments of a people in captivity without a clear future, so to must we lift up the concerns of those whose plans and aspirations have crumbled in a second pandemic summer.

Finally, we must reflect on why we feel so pressed to grow. In this season, many church leaders may find grief and frustration from declining attendance in a season where we had once anticipated growth. In this environment, it is appropriate to wonder why we had put so much emphasis on "post-pandemic" growth. This is a time for all of us to revisit our relationship with growth, why we see increased numbers as our key performance indicator for the healthy congregation. As churches without a clear future, growth is not up to us. This is the time to reflect on the mission and purpose of a congregation. In our capitalist cultural context, growth is often viewed as the end or purpose of all organizations. This season of unrealized hope offers us the opportunity to break that cycle, to reflect on God's call, and to orient our communities accordingly.

Attendance may be down, and Rally Day may be canceled. But God remains at work in our communities. The call of the church, which is seldom synonymous with growth, remains in place. Though the future may be uncertain, it is a future that belongs to God. For that, we give thanks amidst our lamentation.

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@ryanpanzer is the author of "Grace and Gigabytes." An advocate of innovation in the church, he is a skeptic of growth for the sake of growth.

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Facebook for Faith: Should we pray on Facebook?

Facebook started with present-tense status updates (Ryan is...). Then there were pictures. Soon, users could post videos. The newest thing to post to Facebook?

Prayers.

Facebook continues its investment in digital tools for faith communities. Alongside resources listed on their new portal, faith.facebook.com, Facebook has begun testing on a prayer feature. The new feature remains in limited beta testing for faith and spirituality Facebook Groups.

Once launched more broadly, individuals who are part of a church Facebook Group will be able to set a status of "asking for prayers," before listing their specific prayer concerns:

The feature rippled through the news media this weekend, just two weeks after the highly-publicized launch of the Faith for Facebook portal. Reactions in the religious media were somewhat mixed.

Some faith leaders were skeptical, arguing that prayer always requires synchronous, embodied presence. Others were intrigued, expressing gratitude for new opportunities to connect with God and one another. Many interviewed in various news outlets expressed continued skepticism over Facebook's privacy practices, and how the company might use personal information shared through a prayer request. Some openly wondered if the company might serve ads based on one's prayer request. Might Facebook someday follow up on prayers to resolve alcoholism with advertisements for rehab centers?

Indeed, Facebook has an ethical responsibility to show that they are capable of handling this data in a way that elicits communal trust. As a corporation, they clearly have a long way to go. Still, prayer on social media is nothing new. Prayer requests are already commonplace on social media feeds. "Prayers up" is a frequent way to start a tweet or post whenever a friend or connection is facing adversity. Injured professional athletes are frequently the beneficiary of such requests, often from concerned fantasy football owners.

So regardless of whether Facebook's "pray" feature takes off like the like and love buttons, today's faith leaders might consider how such requests intersect with the spiritual needs and inclinations of their own communities. Such discernment exists at the level of liturgy, technology, and administration.

At the level of liturgy, communities should discern how individual prayers shared on social media and other digital platforms might engage the broader church community. This is the single most important liturgical and theological question about prayer online - not whether it "works," not whether it is a valid expression of prayer, but how the posts of the individual might influence the shared work of the community. It would be near-sighted to suggest that prayer and technology are incompatible. Individuals have long found tremendous spiritual support in prayerful online communities.

The question isn't so much whether online prayer works, but how the communal body of Christ that is the church might gather as one to support the celebrations and the concerns lifted up in digital prayer. If we believe that the church is a public body that is formed through communal prayer, then it is our calling to take individual prayer requests and convert them into concrete expressions of communal prayer. Today's church leader might seek to incorporate prayer posts into the worship liturgy, or into small group prayer sessions.

How do we faciltiate communal prayer from an individual prayer request post?

At the level of technology, faith communities should work to implement the technologies most conducive to the communal act that is prayer. This might happen on or off of Facebook. To collect and lift up prayer requests on Facebook, a faith community ought to have a well-established Facebook Group, a feature that churches utilize far less frequently than a Facebook Page (for more on the differences between Groups and Pages, see this post). Groups allow community members to share posts specifically with other group members. Perhaps this confidentiality will add a layer of trust to those who would not prayer requests read by all of one's Facebook contacts.

But Facebook is not the only platform that can or should be used for digital prayer. Group messaging apps like Group Me, Remind, or WhatsApp can exchange prayer requests throughout the week. Presentation software like Mentimeter and chat applications like Slack can curate requests for upcoming worship services. Simple tools like Google Forms can encourage community members to anonymously submit prayer requests for inclusion in public worship services. Whatever the technology one uses, it is essential to develop a process for lifting up and responding to concerns as the shared body of Christ.

And at the level of administration, church leaders should be vigilant. Sharing a prayer request can be an act of deep vulnerability. Anytime a prayer request is shared, communal reactions must be monitored. Respectful and prayerful responses must be insisted upon. And occasionally, a prayer request might violate the confidentiality of another church member ("...please watch over Robert as he works through his latest DUI charge..."). The privacy of other community members must be maintained. While prayer requests will not be particularly burdensome, the task of administering digital prayer requests demands consistent engagement and attunement.

Should we pray on Facebook? Many of us already are. God is showing up in response. It is time for faith communities to do the same.

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

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Facebook for Faith: How churches should use Facebook Groups

Last month, Facebook made a splash with the launch of faith.facebook.com, a hub to connect faith leaders with Facebook resources. The site includes getting started information on Groups, Pages, Charitable Giving, Live, and other widely-utilized tools.

Atop the list of Facebook's resources for churches: Facebook Groups.

In 2018, Lifeway Research, an evangelical publishing house, shared survey data indicating that 84% of protestant pastors use a Facebook page to connect with their congregation. Lifeway is sponsored by the Southern Baptist Convention and their data over-indexes on media-savvy evangelical congregations. Still, their findings point attest to how widespread Facebook has become as a church communications resource - even before the pandemic.

Many congregations are using Facebook to build online community. Yet most aren't using the Facebook feature specifically designed for community conversation.

That's partly because Facebook has struggled to articulate the differences, and the different value propositions, between Facebook Pages and Facebook Groups. Let me attempt to clarify:

A Facebook Page functions as a digital billboard. It is public by default, so everyone can access all of the page's information. Churches widely use Facebook Pages to communicate important information on service times, meeting locations, and upcoming events. Originally developed as an advertising resource, Facebook Pages are Mark Zuckerberg's equivalent of the Yellow Pages.

A Facebook Group functions more like a digital meeting room. It is a collaborative space for multi-directional conversations. Unlike a Facebook Page, it is private by default. New members request to join, and administrators must approve the request. All who gather within a Facebook Group at least implicitly agree to abide by community rules and standards.

Congregations seeking to cultivate conversation on social media should look to Facebook Groups, not Facebook Pages. But most churches haven't set up a Facebook Group - at least not yet.

It's easy to understand why Facebook Groups should be a priority for churches. They provide a platform for collaborative, multi-directional, and asynchronous conversation. Nona Jones, author of the book "From Social Media to Social Ministry," summarizes her research into how churches use Facebook:

"The research pointed loud and clear to one major finding: people want to spend time on Facebook when they are able to engage with content in a meaningful way. And that content needs to invite conversation, not just consumption."

Setting up a Facebook Group is a relatively simple process:

• Create your group: Add a description of your congregation - and what types of conversations will take place in the group. Include photos from your church's life, and invite members to join.

• Customize the settings: Most importantly, determine the group's public visibility. Most churches will likely make their groups private, but visible in search results. This makes the group findable but restricts the visibility of posts and conversations to group members. You may also create a list of membership questions, to ensure those joining the Facebook Group have a previous connection to the congregation.

• Determine the privacy policy: In other words, determine the rules. Set expectations that direct group members to remind kind, courteous, and to respect the privacy of others.

Each step in the process is thoroughly documented in Facebook's guide "Getting Started with Groups." Examples are plentiful - click here for examples from Facebook's faith and spirituality category.

But cultivating Christian community takes more than software settings. It requires intentionality, answering questions like:

• What is the specific purpose of the group? Active church members spend just 8.3 minutes per day on faith-related activities. The most engaging church Facebook Group will never be a frequent hub of online activity. At most, members might check in on the group a handful of times each week. So give them a specific purpose. Does the group exist to share prayer requests? Does it exist to respond to the week's preaching text or sermon? Perhaps it was established as a replacement to a book study group and invites members to respond to a shared reading, video, or podcast episode. When it comes to church group purpose, less is more. If church leaders can precisely define the reason that the congregation should participate in the group, church leaders will find that individuals are more likely to stick around for real conversation.

• How will participation in the group integrate with the church's broader life together? Facebook Groups ought to be situated within the church's broader movement towards hybrid ministry. The conversation should not happen in abstraction nor in a vacuum but should respond to events in the community's life together. Sharing photos from an event, offering reactions to a sermon or podcast, or inviting reflection on a shared discussion question are ways to connect the digital Facebook Group to the analog aspects of Christian community.

• How can church leaders create a distinctively Christian Facebook Group? As the group gains traction within the community, our task isn't so much to cultivate conversation but to articulate lived experiences of faith. This is the difference between a distinctively Christian Facebook Group versus a group that exists for a non-profit or neighborhood. Eventually, the Group should become a place where ideas are exchanged and where community members share stories of God's work in their lives and world. Getting to this point takes effort, curation, and months if not years of active conversation. God can work through the discussions on a Facebook page, provided the community shows up for the conversation.

Have you curated conversations in your church within a Facebook Group? Share your experience in the comments below!

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@ryanpanzer, the author of "Grace and Gigabytes," accompanies churches on their journey towards more immersive, authentic digital community.