In the spring of 2020, as much of the United States began enforcing social distancing measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19, the overwhelming majority of churches accordingly closed their doors. Ministries shifted quickly to digital services as faith leaders and congregants encouraged each other with the reminder “Church is more than a building.”

But can digital ministry become more than a sermon? Our data collected during the 2020 tumult—releasing in a new report, Six Questions About the Future of the Hybrid Church Experience—suggest that a more holistic strategy for digital or hybrid ministry is needed for the long term. With overly optimistic or unclear ideas of how churchgoers are engaged in online services—typically the only digital option churches provide—pandemic-era pastoring may be largely devoid of meaningful touchpoints with congregants. This grey area surrounding online attendance is an urgent challenge of digital and hybrid ministry and underscores the need for more than streamed services.

One in Five Churchgoers Has Never Attended Church Online During COVID Barna has tracked a gradual movement away from regular church attendance over the years, particularly among younger adult generations in the U.S. But during COVID-19, a more obvious and abrupt decline occurred—even among groups who are typically faithful. Here, we’ll look at churched adults, who typically attend church at least once in six months, and practicing Christians, a subset of churched adults made up of Christians who typically attend church at least monthly and say their faith is very important in their life today.

Data show that, as of September 2020, about one in five of those who would normally be defined as churchgoers (22% churched adults, 19% practicing Christians) says they have “never” attended a service during the pandemic, either in person or digitally. Though half of practicing Christians (51%) keep up with online or in-person church on a weekly basis (compared to 37% of churched adults), the reported pandemic attendance of this usually committed group otherwise resembles churched adults at large.

There are multiple factors that might create “dropouts” during this time—including, importantly, health concerns or lack of access to technology. Even so, the fact that one-fifth of practicing Christians who were able and willing to participate in an online survey says they haven’t been present in either a sanctuary an online service during a six-month period speaks to a large-scale interruption of religious routines—or, as we’ll soon explore, the vocabulary that accompanies it.