How has religious participation changed in recent years? What do people think of the online worship experience? What factors attract new people to some congregations and not others? These and many other questions about the perceptions of congregational attendees will be explored in this paper. Drawing on a survey of 25,000 church participants surveyed in fall 2024 for a project looking at changes in religious life after the pandemic, our paper will provide insights into the perspective of church attendees seldom seen in typical polling and surveys of the religion of individuals.
Data for this survey was collected using two distinctive efforts. The first approach was through the Faith Communities Today (FACT) research initiative, a network of religious groups and Christian denominations who have been working collaboratively to survey congregations for more than 25 years. Within this effort, participating denominational groups recruited congregational leaders who then distributed the survey to all of the people connected to the congregation including those attending virtually. The second approach supplemented the FACT data by purchasing responses from two external panels, namely Survey Monkey Audience and Prolific. Taken together, this participant survey represents more than 25,000 church attenders from more than 50 denominational groups.
This paper will summarize key findings from this Attender Survey. At present, we are engaged in the initial cleaning, weighting, and analysis of this dataset. Many of the key findings of this roughly 60-question survey are still being uncovered and made sense of. Nevertheless, this survey is unique in that it is of church attenders—not the general public. While other research institutes have data on a few similar questions these tend to be from the American public generally, this data is unique in that it is only from those who are actually associated with a religious congregation.
In this paper, we will explore changes in attender religiosity over the past five years. We examine changes in service attendance, participation in religious education, levels of volunteering, and financial donations since the start of the pandemic. Anecdotally, many have noticed decreases in these metrics, but this survey provides concrete data on these dynamics. We will discuss these metrics and unpack the differences by various demographic factors.
Another topic we will explore in this paper is how a virtual attender experiences online worship. Many churches began offering online worship during the pandemic and most have continued offering it throughout the ensuing five years. Little is known, however, about what takes place on the other side of the screen—how these virtual participants engage in and experience this online worship reality. We will discuss what factors lead someone to participate in online services, how satisfied they are with the online option, and how engaged (or not) they are during the service presentation. This will provide a unique look into the lived experience of a virtual attender.
This paper will also provide an overview of attenders who are new to their congregation since the pandemic. We explore what factors drew them to the congregation as well as what was their previous connection to organized religion. This will offer a valuable picture of post-pandemic religious appeal and possible sorting by theology/political ideology that is underway.
Overall, this paper will provide a first look at this unique dataset and present many of the most interesting findings that are shaping the religious reality of congregational participants in a post-pandemic context. It will uncover changes in religious participation, the experiences of online participants, and factors that attract people to the congregation they participate in.
Five years after the pandemic, how are church attenders perceiving and understanding church life and the changes in this reality? How have their experiences of corporate worship changed compared to pre-pandemic? What are the routines and rituals of those who worship virtually? This paper explores these and other questions using survey data from 25,000 attenders gathered in fall 2024. While much is known about how congregations have fared post- pandemic, little research has focused on the people currently occupying the pews, whether in-person or virtually. This analysis explores the different perceptions of those joining in the past 5 years, compared to long-timers, discusses the challenge of multiple church loyalties, and explores the commitment patterns of those who only attend in-person, hybrid attenders, and those who attend entirely online. It offers a unique look at a segment of congregational life that is seldom explored but is essential for organizational flourishing.