Religious Services in the Age of COVID-19: Results From a Recent Survey (Part 2)
In my previous article, I shared preliminary findings from an October survey of churchgoers that included 744 respondents who attended church at least a few times per year pre-COVID. Of those 744 respondents, 12.1% attend a Church of Christ, 21.2% identify as Roman Catholic, 8.7% percent attend a non-denominational church, and 6.6% are Southern Baptist. In that article, I focused on the ways their churches have handled the pandemic.
In this article, I’ll share additional findings, focusing on how members rate their congregations’ responses to the pandemic, how difficult the pandemic has been, whether members are leaning on their faith in these difficult times, and how various social services offered by congregations have changed in response to the pandemic.
Similar to the findings from May, most respondents agree or strongly agree that their congregations have done an excellent job of connecting with members over the past few months (75.3%). Along those same lines, over three-quarters of respondents agree or strongly agree that their congregations have done an excellent job of encouraging members over the past few months. Respondents in October were slightly more likely to agree or strongly agree that social distancing has been difficult for them: 59% in October compared to 52.1% in May.
One of the interesting things that I heard anecdotally, especially from younger churchgoers, was that they were more afraid of unintentionally spreading the virus than actually getting sick themselves. So I included a question about that on this survey and found that 60.8% of respondents agree or strongly agree that they are more concerned about spreading COVID-19 than getting sick themselves. We do see that this is more of a concern for younger respondents than older respondents and that the relationship between age and fear of spreading the virus is statistically significant.
We know that church is not a building, but a way of being and living, so I asked several questions about respondents’ spiritual lives. I wanted to know if churchgoers were leaning on their beliefs and values to help get them through difficult times, so I asked how strongly they agree with the statement, “When I get depressed or feel down, my spiritual beliefs and values give me direction.” Only 3.5% of respondents disagree or strongly disagree with this statement, with only 13.9% responding neutrally.
I was also curious about their feelings of connection and belonging to their faith community, so I asked participants to respond to the statements, “Connection to regular meetings with a faith group is very important to me,” and, “I have a strong feeling of belonging/being part of a faith community.” The vast majority of respondents agreed and strongly agreed with both of these statements: 71.2%, and 74.1% respectively. There is a correlation between these two items and how difficult respondents have found social distancing; the more they value regular meeting and connection, the more difficult they report finding social distancing. There are no gender, age, or income differences in how respondents answered these questions.
In light of many respondents not being able to connect at in-person worship services, I wondered how often they lean on prayer, meditation, and quiet time. Among this sample, 4 out of 5 people agree or strongly agree with the statement, “Prayer, meditation, and/or quiet personal reflection form a frequent part of my life.”
The last series of questions were asked of the Church of Christ respondents and related to which services were provided pre-pandemic and which services were currently offered (as of October 2020). The table below shows a comparison (click the table to enlarge). The pandemic has certainly had an impact on churches’ abilities to provide important services to their community.
As conditions change over time it’s important to continue to gather information so that churches can adequately serve their members and community. Thanks for reading this two-part series; I hope you found it useful for your leadership.
