What will the church look like when the Covid-19 lockdown has finally finished? Will church buildings be empty, given the popularity of YouTube services? An impossible question, as almost all the needed information is unknown! What are some of the issues?
Streamed services prove popular. YouTube, Zoom, Skype, etc. services have been popular. Will churchgoing people continue to prefer to watch these or attend ‘real’ services after churches are allowed to open again? One survey found things would gradually go back to normal, but that may well not be completely true of churchgoers. While most under 65s, say 95%, will probably continue to go to church, maybe only half, 50%, of 65-and-overs will continue to do so, as the other half find the comfort, ease, and no necessity to travel, strong reasons for staying at home to participate electronically.
Is age important? Yes. Of English churchgoers at the start of 2020, 990,000 were 65 or over (36%). These divide into two broad groups: those who do not have the facilities, technological skills or motivation for digital expertise, and those who do. Say 80% of the tech-savvy 65-and-overs return to church, and 90% of the non-tech-savvy folk return, being especially keen to have the actual physical worship and fellowship.
While most of the under 65s are likely to be tech-savvy, some will prefer to stay at home and watch YouTube, etc instead, as it is more comfortable, convenient and easier to cope with childcare, while the remainder will return to ‘normal’ church. Suppose 5% are in the first group, and 95% are in the second.
Converts during lockdown? Several reports have indicated that the number of people watching their services have increased substantially over normal attendance. What is not known is for how long these people actually watched the service, with its presumably unfamiliar rituals and prayers. Suppose the actual increase has been 25%, and that a quarter of these, another 25%, watched the whole service (or sufficient of it to count as a participant). So, out of 1,800,000 under-65 churchgoers, perhaps an extra 450,000 others turned their service on, and 110,000 of these watched most of it. That’s a gain. For the over-65s the overall numbers watching the services might have been 60,000, but perhaps only half of these joined a congregation subsequently (a 30,000 gain), the rest watching at home.
Will previous ‘drift-aways’ return? There is no information at all on this, except that there are a number of people who have joined ‘Outside In’ (run by C & M Ministries) and participate in some devotional activity. Say numbers are a tenth of the previous answer.
Some churchgoers will have died of Covid. Sadly, yes they will. For 2020 the number of Covid-19 deaths in England was put at 69,000 by the Office for National Statistics, although it has increased hugely since. Looking just at these deaths, and presuming the likelihood of a Covid death would apply equally to churchgoers as well as non-churchgoers, then with churchgoers being 4.9% of the population, perhaps 4,000 of the total deaths were of churchgoers.
How do these all add up for English churchgoers just for 2020? See the table at the top in which the percentages in the final row are for: Under 65s; 65 & over; Total population, respectively.
While this table is totally speculative, if the assumptions in it turn out to be plausible the net effect of Covid will be to reduce Sunday churchgoers by about one-seventh (-14%). The principal reason is older people preferring to watch services at home, maybe fearful to join a crowded church. Then the challenge is how to get the older people back. For all churchgoers, the habit of regular physical attendance may well take some effort (and time) to restore.
The huge numbers of additional deaths since the beginning of 2021 could change the bottom-line percentages by an extra -1% or -2%. Some might see the problem as not dissimilar to that faced by the cinemas with the challenges of Netflix and film streaming. Why pay for a cinema seat, plus the cost and inconvenience of travel, when one can sit comfortably with a beer and popcorn in one’s home? Is it a case of Christians heeding Paul’s warning: ‘Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your minds’ (Rom. 12:2)?
