Online Worship: What Is Your Church Doing to Reach the Digital Church Hopper?

Has the "Netflix" era of worship arrived?

In other words, have we entered a new era of church, where Christians choose from multiple different worship experiences, often streaming services from more than one congregation? YouTube seems to think so. Each Sunday, I see a dozen or more churches on my YouTube home feed, each beckoning me to click their live stream. Rather than immediately connecting me to my local church, YouTube freely provides me with a carousel of congregational choice.

The congregational carousel reflects a broader trend of ministry multi-tasking. In a trend that has shown remarkable durability in the post-pandemic church, Americans continue to stream the worship services of more than one congregation. Pew Research Data from 2023 finds that nearly 40% of US adults who attend worship services online report watching services from more than one congregation. Participating in the worshipping life of multiple faith communities would have been unusual before 2020. Among American Christians who regularly worship online, the Netflix experience has now become typical.

Digital church-hopping is here to stay. Evangelicals, Catholics, and Mainline Protestants who worship online are tuning into more than one church service. They're tuning in to local and non-local churches, those in their neighborhood and those who seek a global audience. While the reasons for online church-hopping are varied, the online church-hopper has become a fixture of the church in a tech-shaped culture. Today, just 26% of online viewers watch services only from their home church.

There are two important caveats to this data. First, the number of online viewers is a relatively small slice of the American Christians. As of 2022, just 12% of Americans attended church exclusively online. 22% of Protestants attended services both online and offline. So while the online church-hopper is an important trend, it's impact is confined to those who regularly attend services on the web. The second caveat of this data is that the church-hopper represents a highly-engaged segment of America's Christian population. Religious "Nones," about whom much has been written, likely aren't church hoppers.

With these caveats in mind, we might view church-hopping as more of a challenging trend than an opportunity for growth. As Christians increase the quantity of churches they attend, it will likely decrease the quality of their engagement. This trend reflects a pivot from depth of participation to breadth of consumption.

Church-hopping invites Christians to be more selective, empowering the church-goer to constantly evaluate which churches match their theological convictions, denominational preferences, and increasingly their political leanings. It also invites the church-goer to find a community with preaching, liturgy, and music that is attuned to their personal preferences. This inevitably places competitive pressures on clergy and church leaders.

Given these challenges, today's church leader might experience pressure to constantly recalibrate the direction of their ministry to the needs and preferences of an ever-changing set of worship attendees. It's well documented that clergy and church leaders already resource-constrained and under duress. The Hartford Institute for Religion Research found in Fall of 2023 that 53% of clergy had seriously considered leaving the ministry.

Digital church-hopping may not prove to be the major stressor for all faith leaders, but we can already conclude that this trend won't alleviate the stressors facing today's priests and pastors. Digital ministry has done a great deal of good for the church. The Christian message is more accessible and inclusive than it was before the pandemic. However, any account of the impact of digital ministry must reckon with the lasting reality of "Netflix for Church."

So what can a congregation do to reach the online church-hopper? For starters, continue to acknowledge the presence of online attendees through language and liturgy. A simple word of welcome at the start of the service, or during the announcements, affirms the presence of the digital attendee.

Then, consider what makes your congregation's online experience unique. What might inspire someone to tune-in? A stellar sermon? An impressive organist or rock band vocalist? An inclusive expression of liturgy? Whatever it is, highlight this uniqueness in your digital messaging. Clarify why a church-hopper might want to select your congregation from the carousel of options available to them.

Finally, remember the importance of online worship in your congregation's pathway to involvement. 50-60% of in-person church visitors first connect online, through digital worship, a website, or social media. While digital ministry requires considerable effort to sustain, it is an essential first step in connecting with visitors and potential new members - even those who are actively church-hopping.

Ignore the 3-step plan. Church online is not about self-improvement.

“If you want progress, take up running. If you want meaning, run a church.”

-Kate Bowler, No Cure for Being Human

Why does so much of the Christian internet focus on self-help? It's a question I've been asking lately as I sift through religious Instagram accounts that promote "three easy steps" for improving a career, a marriage, or even a holiday celebration. Sometimes, this content is less about optimization and more about prescription. What is a Godly way to run your household finances? What is the Biblical view on job hunting? How does Jesus want you to shop this Christmas season?

As more churches learn to convene online or hybrid communities, I hear more leaders asking about digital content. We're in this moment where we know we need to create or curate. Yet some of the most theologically-informed leaders want to focus this content on self-improvement: finding the right career, discovering how to be truly authentic, or even baking the perfect yule log cake.

Perhaps it's unsurprising that we have an inclination to create self-help content. After all, self help is a $15 billion business in the United States, and Millennials can't seem to get enough. 75 million Millennials pay for self-help apps, services, or resources. Tens of millions more can't get enough of self-optimization podcasts, TikTok videos, or Netflix specials.

If we're looking to create or curate content that spreads, self-help is a logical place to start. The only problem is that it's not what the church is called to be.

The Advent season teaches us about living in liminal moments, spaces defined by a tension between the now and the not-yet. When congregations read texts from Isaiah or Malachi, or when they hear the words of John the Baptist in the wilderness or the song of Mary's Magnificat, we are not hearing a call to self-optimization. We are hearing an expression of hope amidst longing, a cry for God's presence amidst the uncertainty of our world. The arrival of the Christmas season on December 25th affirms that God breaks into our world to dwell with us in these fraught moments and vulnerable seasons.

Blog posts and podcasts that teach us to dwell with loss and longings will likely prove to be unpopular. In this cultural moment, we want to hear from influencers who can subvert the pain and turn tension into resolution. And we want that resolution to arrive as quickly as possible.

A helpful test for Christian content creators is this: does my content create hope amidst uncertainty? Or does it merely promise certainty?

Does my content teach us to be better, or does it simply allow us to be?

Church online is not about self-improvement. The four weeks of Advent teach us that the speed of salvation requires more waiting than our culture would want or expect. Rather, church online is about presence. It's about making known the work of God in a world that is so far from where we want it to be. It's about revealing the presence of a Savior who speaks not in three-step plans or self-help books, but in solidarity with our world's sufferings.

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.