CHURCHGOERS in the United States are increasingly mixing online and in-person worship, a new study suggests. Since the pandemic, many now attend several different churches.

The study, Exploring Pandemic Impact on Congregations, published by the Hartford Institute for Religion Research, is based on a survey of 24,000 churchgoers in the US, carried out last autumn.

One quarter of the respondents said that they regularly participated in services both virtually and in person. Newer churchgoers were more likely to attend both in person and online.

“By far, the most common reason [to attend online worship] is convenience,” the study said: this was given as a reason by nearly half (46 per cent) of the respondents. Other reasons included illness, caring duties, and being homebound.

Those who participated online, however, were likely to be less engaged, and some said that they multi-tasked during worship: one respondent said that they did their supermarket shopping while following a service.

These “dual format attenders are more likely to have increased their attendance over the last five years, are younger have families with children, and have higher educational attainment”, the report says.

Of these, more than two-thirds attended large churches with a congregation size of at least 250. Only six per cent of the respondents attended churches with fewer than 50 in the congregation each week. Larger churches tended to be less negatively influenced by the pandemic, with more resources at hand to keep in touch with members of their congregations.

Forty-six per cent of the respondents said that they regularly attended or viewed services in different churches. Younger churchgoers and black Americans were most likely to attend several churches.

One quarter of the respondents said that they had increased the amount of time that they spent volunteering in church, and many of the new churchgoers said that they were now also volunteering.

Thirty-seven per cent of the respondents said that they had increased their financial contributions to their church during the past five years.

Thirty-eight per cent said that they had begun attending their current church since the pandemic. More than two-thirds of these said that they had changed churches, but 22 per cent said they had not attended church for years before re-joining; eight per cent had never attended a church before the pandemic.

Many regular churchgoers said that they missed their old patterns of worship, and were resistant to change, the report says.

One of the lead researchers, Scott Thumma, said: “The challenge for clergy is how to deliver the stability of formerly established patterns for the two-thirds of long-term attenders while also maintaining the flexibility and openness to change for the remaining third of participants who joined during the pandemic.”