In the Current Issue: "Lasting Changes in Worship from the Pandemic"
The issue of Liturgy entitled “How the Pandemic has Changed Worship” guest-edited by Taylor Burton-Edwards contains articles that look at survey data from pre- and post-pandemic worship both in-person and on-line principally from research by the Hartford Institute of Religion. This excerpt from Burton-Edwards’ essay details the use of online worship technologies among various Christian traditions, including whether they were live-streamed or recorded or asynchronous. The full essay is accessible through institutional and individual subscriptions. –– Melinda Quivik
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What have been the lasting impacts of the pandemic on worship communities in the United States? Beginning in 2021, the Hartford Institute for Religion Research was granted funding by the Lilly Endowment for a five-year study of that question. Hartford had completed its 2020 FACT [Faith Communities Today] study of over 15,000 US congregations based on data gathered prior to the pandemic. This study provided a baseline for asking about and discerning change and impacts over the course of the succeeding five years. As part of its comprehensive study, Hartford has conducted national surveys reaching thousands of congregations, longitudinal studies with 300 congregations and their clergy, and regional qualitative studies (focus groups) with follow-ups through 2024. . .
This essay will explore three of the most salient changes Hartford’s studies have found for US congregations: the rise and adaptation of hybrid worship, net shifts in reported attendance as a result of hybrid worship, and a decided move to online giving that has altered the nature, if not always the practice, of “the offertory.”
Of the 8,669 congregations completing surveys as part of their 2020 Faith Communities Today. . . study prior to the pandemic, Hartford found that only 23 percent were streaming their worship services on any platform, though 53 percent had the technology to do so. When lockdowns began in March 2020, many judicatories or denominational offices began offering financial support to help congregations obtain streaming licenses for congregational singing, Zoom licenses, and/or streaming hardware so that more of their congregations would be able to offer online-only services in some form. . .
As more churches were authorized to gather physically in 2021, many chose—instead of creating or continuing a unique online presentation for those who could not attend in person or felt unsafe doing so—simply to livestream what was happening in real time in the in-person worship service. This marked a decided shift from online-only worship to hybrid worship, with the worship experienced by the in-person gathering being extended to include those unable or unwilling to attend the service in person.
When Hartford explored what had happened with hybrid worship in 2023, they found that of all churches surveyed, fully 75 percent had become hybrid on a weekly basis (83 percent for majority-Black congregations), 23 percent had become in-person only (15 percent for majority-Black congregations), and only 2 percent were only online. Hybrid worship services in white and multi-racial churches decreased by 7.4 percent while majority-Black churches’ use of hybrid worship did not decrease compared with the results of a previous survey in 2021. In 2021 and 2023, hybrid worship was offered in 81 percent of Black churches. Over that same two-year time period, 38.4 percent more churches were offering in-person worship than in 2021, and churches offering worship in person increased by 34.8 percent. Despite the changes, these shifts indicate a persistence of hybrid worship as a new norm more than a significant turn away from it, at least in churches larger than fifty in average worship attendance. Of the 5,162 congregations surveyed for this study, 97 percent of those offering hybrid or online-only worship indicated they believed they would continue some sort of online access to their worship services over the coming years.
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Taylor W. Burton Edwards is a pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America and director of “Ask The UMC” having previously served as the Director of Worship Resources for The United Methodist Church. His extensive ecumenical involvements have included service with the American Baptist Churches, as secretary and chair of the Consultation on Common Texts (2009–2020), secretary of the North American Academy of Liturgy (2017–2024), and as a board member of The Liturgical Conference (2004–2024) for which he was treasurer from 2014–2024.