Five years ago, COVID upended lives. In early 2020, people were casually going to the movies, having friendly get-togethers and attending regular Sunday church services. But on March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a pandemic.
Widespread quarantines and social distancing ensued, along with closures of churches and other public spaces. But congregations adapted, even as many had already been grappling with declining membership and other issues. And as congregations rallied, some changes remained when in-person gatherings resumed.
So which changes are still notable today? Scott Thumma, professor of sociology of religion and co-director of the Hartford Institute for Religion Research, says the COVID pandemic has had a lasting impact on congregations’ willingness to change worship practices, their provision of virtual worship and the mental health of clergy.
Thumma is the principal investigator for Exploring the Pandemic Impact on Congregations: Innovation Amidst and Beyond COVID-19 (EPIC), a five-year research project funded by Lilly Endowment Inc. and led by the Hartford Institute for Religion Research.
“Much of what we are seeing in congregations and faith communities really doesn’t look that much different than the data we’ve been tracing since 2000 in terms of how healthy congregations are and their functioning,” Thumma said. “A lot of those trajectories really just continued through the pandemic and onward. So congregations are still getting smaller; they’re still getting older.”
“That said, there have been some changes that we’ve seen that have a pretty profound effect, and we’re not really sure exactly what the full ramifications of some of these changes are going to be,” Thumma said.
Willingness to change
The pandemic forced people to adapt, and this was noteworthy for congregations. “Congregations don’t like to change,” Thumma said. “But what happened during the pandemic was this realization that, in fact, they were going to die if they didn’t change.”
One of the project’s ongoing survey questions asks whether congregations are willing to change to meet new challenges. After the pandemic, the number willing to change “shot up” and “stayed there for two of our surveys, and then it started to come back down in our last survey,” Thumma said.
But that willingness to change may have hit a limit for some. As some congregations embrace new practices, they may pause additional updates. “I think the collective trauma of the pandemic and all that change has really turned many congregations inward and like, ‘OK, we changed, but we’re not doing anything more,’” he said.
“As one who works with pastors and lots of churches, I constantly tell them, ‘Look, the world has changed. You have to change to fit the new world.’ And very few congregations ever did that. But the pandemic made them break out of their old molds, try new things, and embrace this openness or this willingness to change,” he said.
Virtual worship
“The first of those [major changes] is nearly three-quarters of congregations doing livestreaming or some other … form of virtual worship. There were some congregations that prior to the pandemic did have online service livestreaming or, more likely, recorded their service and then put it on their YouTube page or on their website or something. But nothing like postpandemic,” Thumma said.
“That is a significantly positive thing in many ways,” he said. “Folks who happen to be traveling over the weekend, they get to stay in touch with their church. Or if they’re homebound, they can feel like they participate. Or if they’re neurodivergent, they can come into the space and not be threatened by it or overwhelmed by the smells or sounds.”
And online worship also likely isn’t going away. “When we asked [in surveys] if they anticipated continuing to offer worship services in this way in five years, a majority of folks said yes,” Thumma said.
But this practice can have drawbacks, including its impact on giving and volunteer numbers. “We’re also seeing in the data that people who worship virtually generally are not as committed. They don’t give as much money; they don’t volunteer as often,” Thumma said.
Clergy mental health
The pandemic left many people experiencing loneliness and grief. Faith leaders and congregations were not immune, and today some leaders still face these kinds of challenges.
It is important to note that a majority of clergy seem quite healthy overall, according to an EPIC report titled “‘Challenges Are Great Opportunities’: Exploring Clergy Health and Wellness in the Midst of Post-Pandemic Malaise,” which focused on a national survey of roughly 1,700 Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox clergy.
In fact, the survey found that clergy overall “tend to be healthier than the general public in terms of mental, emotional and spiritual wellbeing.” That said, “there were significant variations, with 34% of clergy still rating in the ‘fair’ or ‘poor’ range on a composite wellness measure,” according to an EPIC announcement about the report. In addition, “younger clergy, particularly Millennials, reported lower levels of wellbeing compared to older peers,” and “nearly half of clergy claimed frequent or occasional loneliness, highlighting relational challenges.”
While the research does not confirm the cause of these challenges, they may be associated with current frustration that some clergy feel, Thumma said.
“Most of the leaders we talk to realize that they still need to do a whole bunch of changing to appeal to younger generations. … But their people are saying, ‘No, no, we’re not going to do that anymore. We did it a little bit there. That was out of necessity. We’re not going to do it anymore,’” Thumma said.
“If the clergy can’t make them change, then the congregations get smaller and they can only afford part-time [clergy], and then the clergy vocation doesn’t look as appealing,” Thumma said. “So there are all these ripple effects of some of these dynamics, that, while they were already in play over the last few decades — the pandemic just amplified some of the problems,” he said.
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