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.