EP105: Savannah Kimberlin & Barna’s "6 Questions about the Future of the Hybrid Church"

Episode 105 of the Church Digital Podcast, powered by Stadia Church Planning. Jeff here.

Stadia, we talk a lot about Stadia, of course. I mean, hey, they're my boss. And it's an incredible

organization to work with, to work for. And I love their heart for the big C churches,

not only here in America, but across the country and around the world. And so here in this COVID

season, they have been so aggressive and innovative, trying to help churches learn how to thrive,

grow, and multiply physically as well as digitally. It's not about being in the building and it's not

about broadcasting services. It's really about creating those disciple makers, mobilizing and

releasing them. The Great Commission, digitally or physically, just do it, mobilize and release

these people out so that your church can even learn how to multiply in this season. And so first off,

right off the bat, if your church is interested in some of this stuff, we are doing some aggressive

things in 2021 towards helping churches learn how to thrive, grow, and multiply. So check it out.

Go to stadiachurchplanning.org slash digital, P-H-Y-G-I-T-A-L. It's the Strengths of Physical

and Digital. Stadiachurchplanning.org slash digital. Check it out. Head over there. The link's in the show

notes as well. Get signed up for a learning community in 2021. Find more of what it takes,

what it takes to get part of this and how stadia can help you, your church, learn how to thrive,

grow, and multiply. Tell you what, we're going to extend that stadia love heading in here while we're

doing episode 105. Because in this COVID season, part of the innovation that we have done, stadia,

we've had the honor of partnering with Barna Research towards releasing a study on what digital

church, what digital church looks like in and amongst this COVID season. And unbiasedly, I got to tell you,

this is probably the best research that I've seen on digital church, period. Not to mention the best

research that I've seen on digital church, what is actually happening inside digital church in this

COVID season. So I'll put this link in the show notes as well. The report itself is over at

barna.com slash stadia. Barna, B-A-R-N-A dot com slash stadia, S-T-A-D-I-A. Go ahead and put the link in the show

notes. No, we have nothing to do with Stadia, with Stadia gaming from Google. Just wanted to get that out of

the way. Stadia church planning, completely separate thing. But barna.com slash stadia is where you can

buy this report. And it is a phenomenal report with stats and research. Basically, what the end user is

experiencing and what their thought patterns are walking into this digital church season. Do they

like it? Do they not like it? Are they turned off by it? How much do they want to do? Are they okay

with communion online? Are they okay with discipleship? Are they okay with prayer? It was so rich beyond just

the one hour on Sunday. I loved getting the feedback from what the people want to experience as a result of

this. And so the report was so good. I reached out to Barna and was like, hey, who can I talk with

towards this idea of what we're doing with digital church here with the report? So we're bringing into

the podcast here, Savannah Kimberlin. Now, Savannah's been with Barna a long time. She'll tell you about

that here on the podcast. But here with this research journal, we're really drilling into the six

questions about the future of the hybrid church experience. So when we're talking about physical and

digital coming together with Barna, they're using that word hybrid, that hybrid church. And so we're digging in here

talking about the six questions about the future of what a hybrid church experience could look like

or where are we? What are we learning in this season today? Love this. Love digging in. Not only talking about

where we are as a church and what we're learning across the Big C Church, but philosophically, what does this mean

for the future of our churches here in America and beyond? So for the conversation, I'm bringing in Savannah

Kimberlin once again with Barna and myself, Jeff with the Church Digital and Stadia Church Planning,

essentially discussing the six questions about the future of the hybrid church experience. Okay,

everybody. Here you go. Maybe even just open up. Savannah, I'd love to, you know, know your ministry

story. How you got plugged in working for a company like Barna? What's it like working for Barna?

Yeah. Firstly, Jeff, thank you for having me on today. This really is a privilege to spend some time and

talk with you. So my background, actually, I was a math major in college. I love to solve problems with

numbers. That's what I've always loved to do. So I decided to go to grad school and I actually studied

decision analytics. So big data, the world of big data and all that is involved there. It's an ever

changing industry. That's for sure. So that was my career trajectory and path. And at first, after grad

school, I was in the software development industry, um, but long story short, when I was in grad school,

I wrote my thesis on using big data to predict volunteer burnout at churches. How can we use, um,

yeah, volunteers, big data footprints. Yeah. To predict whether or not they're going to stick around

as volunteers and Brooke Hempel, who's our senior vice president at Barna actually caught wind of my

thesis and we grabbed coffee. And a couple months later I joined Barna. So that's what led me, um,

led me to this organization was actually just through, through my thesis. And the fact that I've

always wanted to do math and study the church and see those two things, those two passions of mine,

walk hand in hand professionally. Um, and I get to do it every day, which is unreal that I'm able to do

that. Well, I tell you what, it would be a miss if I didn't pull that thread here a little bit. It's not

all what I wanted to talk about on the podcast, but what were your observations centered around, uh, big data

and, and, and volunteering in burnout? Like what, what, what did you observe? Yeah. So you can predict,

uh, um, behavior through big data footprints, which is wild. And that's, that's why, you know, organizations

like, like target, you know, or other large companies, they'll look at your big data footprints

to try to determine, um, you know, marketing strategies and the rest. And so I, I found that

that actually was the case as well for, for volunteers. So there were, there were certain key elements of

people's lives, um, looking. So we looked at a wide assortment of variables and a certain,

a few variables popped that if they appeared in a certain order or organized in a certain way,

they did in fact predict burnout. So the, the result was we flagged all of the volunteers that

were showing those signs. And then the pastors reached out to them proactively to shepherd them,

um, and just to check in on them. And so instead of responding defensively to burnout, they were able

to respond proactively to burnout for, for the test church that partnered with me. So, um, it was,

it was really interesting. That's awesome. Big data to save the day. I know, I know. A really cool

story. All right. Hey, so, so what, what we, I really wanted to talk about here, and I'm excited about

this. Stadia is partnering, um, with Barna when it, when it comes to the idea of releasing a journal,

uh, centered around what digital church is and hybrid churches and how it's responding here in the midst

of the COVID season. And it's, it's been released. We'll, we'll put a link in the show notes. It's,

uh, barna.com slash Stadia. We'll get you there, but it's six questions about the future of the hybrid

church experience. And so, um, the findings of it, uh, were just released. And so I was, was really

excited about this pouring into, uh, all, you know, all just sorts of, of informations and graphs, trying

to discover what we're learning, what we're seeing, and, and, and really even from the audience

perspective, what they're experiencing and processing here in this COVID season through, through the

church. And I was honest, there were some things that I was, I was really surprised by. There were a lot

of things that, that I expected, but there were a couple curve balls that I was like, man, I did not

see that coming at all. So, you know, Savannah, I want to thank you for jumping on here, you know,

even just with Barna's perspective and, and starting to talk here a little bit about the data, super

excited how all this is, is, is coming together. Um, you know, just maybe even a knee jerk question for

you right off the bat, uh, general findings. What was, what was something that was surprising for you,

um, when you were going into this? Did you have like going into it something in mind where you thought

the results were, did it line up or what, was it something completely different? We went into this

project trying to, uh, our, one of our biggest goals was to really gauge openness. Are people open

to digital alternatives for faith experiences? How open are they? Um, if we look at each of those

faith experiences separately, like just gathering together or even, even just, um, baptism or communion,

like if we really break apart traditions, discipleship, outreach, evangelism, so on and so forth. If we break

apart those things, how open are people to each of those different, um, faith expressions or

experiences and why, why are they open or why are they not open? And what I was, I was really surprised

to find is there is a lot more openness than perhaps we thought. Um, one of my favorite statistics

that emerged from this study is we just flat out asked people what type of church experience is going

to fit your lifestyle the best after, after COVID. Is it a physical gathering, a digital gathering,

both or neither? And so many churchgoers said both. They, they, um, they acknowledge that a hybrid model

fits their lifestyle the best. And similarly, we saw openness for discipleship digitally, and we saw

openness for outreach digitally and, and communicating, um, to neighborhoods and serving neighborhoods digitally.

It was really interesting to see that, um, one of our data points showed that, um, especially because of

the pandemic, openness has grown exponentially. And it really speaks to, I think, the moment that we're in

that on the backside of this pandemic, um, there, there will remain openness that was not there pre-pandemic.

That's great. Look, looking forward to unpacking even more here. I, one of the things that I love

about, about Barna and just anytime you're dealing with big data, you're looking at the same data

through different perspectives and, and, and wrestling with, okay, this vantage point versus this one

And so you're, you're, you're very thorough with, uh, practicing Christians, church adults, unchurched adults

perspectives there, uh, generationally, uh, you know, Gen Z, millennial, Gen X, boomers, that, that perspective.

Yeah.

One of the things that, that, that I loved here was you also had the perspective of people who maybe had

more of a bend towards technology and digital, digital. And so like digital church openness

was, was a phrase that, that you used in here. And so you were looking at the results through people

who were maybe open to the idea of digital church and others that maybe did not, or not even digital

church, but just digital in general. Some people who maybe were a little bit less, like, I would love

to just know how did you, um, how did you filter out whether somebody was like open to digital church

or had that been towards digital?

Great question. So we did a lot of analysis, a lot of robust analysis to decide what were the key

indicators of openness, um, maybe phrasing it a little bit differently. What were the key variables

that if we cut the respondents by those variables, the divide would be as stark as it possibly could,

right? We really wanted to create groups of people that looked different and had very defined, uh,

traits and characteristics that made them unique. So in our analysis, we looked at a bunch of variables

and we found that some things that, that floated to the surface were, um, that data point that I had just

mentioned. So saying that hybrid or digital church fits your lifestyle the best, which is a very personal

type of question, a very reflective question. And so we found that that was powerful, um, for people to voice

their real world practical needs. Um, we also found that secondly, openness to discipleship digitally

spiked. So that was very, um, very influential in determining openness. So if you were willing to

participate in discipleship digitally or online, um, and then thirdly was that outreach piece that I

mentioned as well. So if you were open to doing outreach digitally, um, then you, you were put into

that high openness group. Um, and then finally the four, the fourth characteristic that I want to mention

was actually a pretty unique one. And, and I think for any listeners today, um, this is a characteristic

that perhaps you wouldn't have thought of ahead of time. Um, we found that churchgoers who said that

generally speaking, they're the types of people who are open to attending new kinds of gatherings that

are different than what they're used to. That was very influential. It was a very influential variable.

They're, they're these types of people who are just open to new experiences. They're willing to put

themselves out there. Um, as you might suspect there few, fewer, I'm not going to say few, but fewer

boomers have this trait, um, less so than other generations. That doesn't mean no boomers have

this trait, but fewer boomers have this trait. Just having, having a general openness to trying

new things, trying new environments and new communities. So that, um, those were four really

defining marks, how we, how we defined openness. So if you showed that you carried all of those marks,

then, um, then you were considered high, high openness. You had high openness.

Yeah. And I totally believe that there are more people out there that have a digital

leaning that, that the church just hasn't even recognized yet. And I'm beginning to see

some of that, even through some of the stats that are coming up, like you mentioned, um, you know,

digital discipleship or, you know, digital prayer being open to some of those experiences.

Sure. Uh, practicing Christians, you know, right now, one of, one of the, uh, one of the stats

that came out of it, practicing Christians, 20% are open to digital prayer experiences when

it comes to, and I'm even combining digital spiritual formation with digital discipleship.

You isolated them, you know, potentially 27% of people were, were open to something like

that. So we're, you're seeing people that have more of a bend towards digital discipleship,

digital prayer, digital experiences more beyond the, the one hour on Sunday. And there's,

there's really like a, a challenge, I think, for the church to kind of step up and embrace

that, uh, from, from a digital perspective. What, um, were there other findings that were

coming out, like volunteering digitally, digital children's digital youth experiences? Were,

were there other things that, that you were looking towards as,

hey, here's a, a tell sign of somebody that's wanting to be more aggressive in the digital space?

Yeah, I think so. I think certainly parents that are willing to, um, disciple their children

digitally was a telltale sign. Um, a lot, I would say though, quite a few parents are hesitant to do so,

or even their youth, um, to have the, the church community alternative for young people today be

digital solutions. And perhaps I, I think that reason is because we just need to get better at

serving the youth of America digitally. You know, that I think that's a way that, um, churches are all

looking to improve right now. Um, um, but we found that, that parents that are open to that are more

inclined to be digitally open for their own personal spiritual development as well. Um, a couple other

indicators. We asked a question about, um, do, do you struggle to focus during a service? And quite a few

people said that they did struggle to focus. However, um, the, the few people that were able to kind of

cut through the noise and really connect with the community. And what I mean by that is, is emotionally

connect in the sense where they were showing signs of saying, I feel cared for by my pastors. I feel

emotionally connected and relationally connected to my community. Um, if they exhibited those signs,

they were able to cut through that noise of, uh, being distracted or struggling to focus during a

digital spiritual experience. And, and they showed more signs of openness because they were emotionally

connected and were, were able to cut through those distractions. Yeah, that was, that was one of the

surprises for me. And I don't have that slide up in front of me, but the high percentage of people that

felt connected and cared for by the church, by the individual pastors, by watching that digital

service, I, I wasn't expecting that level. I was expecting, you know, that they needed more

engagement, more two-way conversation, more individual approach. But per your report, looking at the,

the individual attenders, digital attenders, they felt cared for even by, by watching that,

that online service. Yeah. I think we were surprised by that data point as well. I remember having some

conversations internally about that data point. Um, but I think also we need to realize that the

definition of what does it mean for a pastor to care for a congregation is different right now. And

when we say I'm connected to my community, that's different right now than even what it was nine months

ago. And so although things are, are more difficult, I think congregants, um, my takeaway from that data

point is that congregants are very understanding. They understand that pastors are doing the best that

they can. And we saw in some other data as well, that congregants are just appreciative, that pastors

are really trying right now. They're doing the best that they can. They're looking to innovate and grow.

I mean, the number of churches that are innovating for the first time in years during this pandemic,

it's really remarkable and admirable. Um, and, and congregants are seeing that and they feel cared

for and they, they feel connected, even though it's different than what it was before the pandemic.

One of the bad things in this season is, or potentially bad. I don't know that it's bad for

an individual church. Maybe, maybe it's bad that we're, individuals are attending more than one

church. And there's a fear, Hey, we're not gonna, we're going to lose these people where that's

grounded. Uh, you know, that's, it's a whole other conversation, but from, from a data standpoint,

what it looks like I'm understanding is roughly 20 to 35%, uh, given age demographics are attending

multiple church services online. Was there any more, uh, understanding towards why or where,

or how many, or what that looked like? Uh, cause I know that that's something as local churches are

out there, you know, there's always somebody better on the content side. And I know there's fear that

they're going to lose some, some of these people. So what, can you unpack maybe some of, of what you

learned through this, uh, through these findings?

Yeah, absolutely. That's the question of the day, isn't it? Um, are my people watching my service or

are there random people watching my service as, as a pastor? Everybody's wondering who are my viewers?

Um, and that, that is a, a great question to ask because we want to make sure that we understand who

we're serving. So it's, it's a very understandable question. Um, what we found in the data is that the

majority of churchgoers are remaining faithful to the congregation that they were a part of before COVID.

So that's great news for all of us. I think pastors, you can stop sweating. It's okay. Um,

some of them, it was interesting. We wanted to give them the opportunity to express what their,

what their attendance habits were looking like during the pandemic. And one of our options,

response options was I, it was along the lines of I'm remaining committed to my church, like my,

the church that I consider to be my church, but I'm also sampling other churches. And quite a few

adults selected that answer. They, they are sampling other churches. However, they were showing signs

even throughout the data of remaining loyal to the congregation that they were attending before the

pandemic. So although the number of views that some of these more advanced, larger churches are getting

are spiking. That does not necessarily mean that loyalty in the hearts of these churchgoers is

shifting from their pastor, from their local congregation to that, that larger church or whoever

else they are also watching on a Sunday. So I think that's great news in the sense that, um, even though

though many churches have not met in person for months and months and months, the loyalty is remaining

steadfast for many churchgoers. Um, so that that's really great news for the pastors of today.

And there, there's always opportunities to expand the ministry beyond just that, that content, just that

weekend, Sunday piece, you know, looking, looking here, like going back to the, uh, the percentage of people

that will embrace in a, in a digital discipleship, uh, angle, the number of people that are, are wanting

to volunteer in online environments, um, digitally connecting with, with people, there's a lot more

opportunity to, to engage. And so if we're, if we're just putting content to content, there, there's a risk.

But when you create more of that church experience where you're giving people ownership and discipleship,

like there's, there's a lot more potential growth for somebody in those areas. And I think within that

growth is where the loyalty comes in, in play. Yeah, absolutely. You know, and, and I know one of

the things that I'm excited about with you is, um, with where Barna's going is, um, more than just the

digital church, like there, it feels like there's a, a suite where there's more reports that, that are

going to be coming out digitally, uh, evangelism, discipleship, right? You want to maybe update a

little bit on those? Cause I'm excited to see this whole thing develop. Yeah, absolutely. So this

hybrid church journal is one of many that we hope to publish. So we are releasing a state of the digital

church series because we know that so many things are disrupted. So many different facets of the faith

experience are being innovated right now digitally. So we wanted to, um, really explore them piece by

piece. So as of right now, the hybrid church was our, was our first journal that we launched with

Stadia. And then we are going to be releasing the first week of December, um, one on digital evangelism

with alpha. And then also we're doing a second one with alpha in the new year on creating digital prayer

experiences. How do we create hospitable environments and powerful corporate prayer environments digitally

when you're not in person? Um, so those are, those are two more journals that we have teed up right

now. And we hope to do even more in the future into 2021. It's exciting because you're starting to get

like a more richer picture of, of what church is more than just that weekend service, creating that

digital, uh, community, that digital discipleship, that digital prayer. Uh, we recently did it, did a

podcast, uh, Greg Nettle, president of Stadia. He asks me all, every time I see him, he's like, Hey,

where have you seen the tangible presence of God happening online? You know, and he's, he's not asking for

like the weekend service update. He's asking for where is God moving. And it's, that's more than just a,

a content thing. And by Barna doing research and digging into the disciple making into the,

the, the weekend serve or the, um, the prayer moments, we're starting to explore more of this

space other than just what's happening kind of within that Sunday morning, 9am, uh, look and feel.

So that's, that's really exciting. Um, one, one of the things I'd love to maybe pull the thread a little

bit on is, and I don't know if the, your stats show it or if you can provide any, any leanings towards

it. The, you know, you shared the stat with me, 75% of people attend, uh, a church that's less than 250

in attendance. Um, you know, in this COVID season, pre-COVID by far the vast majority of people who

were doing anything online had more of a mega giga church mentality, but out of necessity in this COVID

season, a number of churches, um, pivoted and had to get online quickly of, of all sizes. Some of my

closest friends are, are lead pastors of churches, you know, under 100 that are doing something

digitally. Um, is there any, um, awareness or, or stats centered around the size of the church or

how a smaller church is going to embrace an idea versus a bigger, bigger church? Did you

get any findings in those areas? Yes, certainly. So hybrid, the hybrid model or incorporating digital

into the way that you did church in some form was already a part of the equation for many churches,

about 500 in size or larger. Um, but all of the churches that were smaller than that, and for sure,

the churches that were 250 or fewer, um, very, very few of them had a digital strategy before this

moment. And if they did, they were ahead of the curve and re reasons for that. I think we need to

understand, um, you know, understand where these leaders are at. Their initiatives are volunteer led.

They have very small budgets to work with. Their focus is, um, highly, highly pastoral,

intimate relationship with their congregants and walking through life with their congregants

in these smaller congregations. And we, you're right, Jeff, we do need to remember that three out of

four people that go to church, attend a church that feels like this, that's small, that's volunteer led,

that maybe has one person on staff. Maybe the pastor may very well be bivocational. So,

so the transition to the pandemic, certainly our data has, has shown that it was more difficult

for those churches because they, they did not have a digital strategy beforehand. And that made

a large difference, not only for ease of transition for staff and, and for congregation, but also

we did see in our data that those congregants who were exposed to digital church before the pandemic,

they were far more likely to be open to engaging digitally with things like discipleship and

children's ministry during the pandemic. They were already open to the idea beforehand.

Um, so what is the transition to this pandemic moment looked like for those smaller churches?

It's been hard for sure to go digital. Many of them, um, you know, they just set up their iPhone

on a tripod and stream themselves preaching on a Sunday. And that's the best that they can do. Um,

I think maybe as an example of that, some of our dearest friends are Methodist ministers

pastors in Mississippi and they're in their twenties and in their division, um, all of the other pastors

in their division are in their fifties or above. And so when the pandemic hit, um, they ended up

forming like a small group with, with my friends who were in their twenties and all of those other

pastors, because the pastors were like, I don't even know how to Facebook live stream. Can you help me

figure this out? And, and all of those pastors that were represented on those zoom calls pastored small

congregations. They just, they didn't have resources. So it's been a struggle to go digital. And I think

if we want to encourage these people to consider the hybrid church model in the future, even looking

beyond just setting up an iPhone and listening to yourself preach, they're going to need some more

help with getting over those technological barriers. Um, what does it look like to do digital discipleship

when you only have a hundred congregants? What does that even look like? How do we do, um,

children's ministry or youth ministry when there are only a handful of children that you're ministering

to week in and week out? What does that look like on a small scale? I think that's, that's really

something for us all to think through. And I'm not quite sure if we've, we've cracked the code on that.

Maybe Stadia has, I don't know. I don't think we have. Um, but yeah, the small church thing is

different, but I, I do want to say, Jeff, one final thing that we've seen in the data,

one strength of the small church in this pandemic that the large church does not have is the

connectedness and the strength of relationship between congregant and pastor has remained so strong.

And so we've been asked the question a lot. How do we replicate that in larger church environments?

Because these pastors of small congregations are able to call all their congregants, you know, and,

and they're able to go knock on their door and check in on them. And of course, socially distancing,

but just, you know, how do we replicate that for a large church? And, and so any pastors of large

churches who are listening, um, are you being intentional to build relationship with your congregants,

or are you getting caught up in the digital production? Uh, when's the last time you sent an email that was

not professionally designed with graphics? It was just from, from you with words on a page and your

signature at the bottom to a congregant. Um, that, that is something that I think pastors of larger

congregations really can learn from smaller congregations right now.

Yeah. I had a, um, early, call it March, early April, 2020. I had a giga church, digital pastor,

20,000 pre COVID, um, attendance physically, not to mention tens of thousands online. I had that pastor

tell me, Jeff, I wish I was at a small church right now where I was able to do tangible, physical

ministry, individual ministry towards it. And so the, the challenge of, of, of churches today,

and, and, and I think you, you just, you know, hit the nail on the head Savannah. It's how do we do,

um, relational ministry utilizing these digital tools that, that, that can, that can multiply our

people. And at the same time, build relationships with people who are far from God and point them,

uh, evangelically to God, which is actually, it's summarizes everything of what I'm excited about

as you're developing this digital, these journals, these digital suite, uh, of addressing the ideas

of, yeah, the weekend services is, is important. Evangelism is important. Disciple making is

important. If we can figure out prayer is important. And if we can figure out how to do all of these

things together digitally, if we can learn what we can do, um, the church has huge opportunities

to do things digitally as, as well as, as physically, like we're, we're, we're talking a lot

about this, this digital. And for me, one of the stats that, that I found really telling in this

is that people are not looking for a lone physical experience. Right. There's a percentage that is,

there's a percentage that of smaller percentage that's looking for a digital only experience.

Yeah. Yeah. But the majority seem to be looking for some sort of hybrid where they can go back

and forth between physically and digital. You want to unpack some of that? Yeah, for sure. So one of the

questions that we asked was, um, we asked people to agree or disagree to the following statement. Um,

would you say that physically, the physical gathering of Christians or the physical gathering of a,

of a church experience is very important to you? Like, would you, would you say that? And the vast

majority of people agreed with that statement. Um, I, I think we want to innovate digitally a hundred

percent, but we cannot forsake or forget the fact that many, many Christians still do believe that

the gathering is a very important piece of their faith experience. So we have to keep that in mind,

that that's how people are feeling, um, that that's, that is what they're wanting. However, you're

exactly right, Jeff, alongside that statistic, I mean, 42% of millennials said that they are looking for

a hybrid solution for their lifestyle for their church engagement after, um, the pandemic 42%. So we have

to understand that there's this, this need for connection. There's this need for gathering,

of course, because we're humans, but at the same time, they are looking for flexible solutions.

So I would say that was probably one of the largest findings of, of, um, of putting the digital and the

physical next to each other and analyzing them side by side. Physically, we want, we want our

traditions that are dear to us, like weddings and funerals and visitations. And we want to gather with

other believers, um, for many liturgical denominations. Of course, we want to take the Eucharist together,

right? Like that, that is really, really, really important. However, we want flexibility. And on the

digital side of things, we believe that innovation is totally the answer for the future, because I can

still get community and intimacy of relationship and a powerful worship experience. I can still get those

things digitally. So I, I certainly, um, I'm not willing to, we saw respondents say, I'm not willing

to compromise really on either. I, I would like to have both, you know, your, your, your boss, David

Kinnaman, uh, who I have the utmost respect for, um, you know, he just recently went through a loss of,

of his wife to cancer. I'm blanking on the type of brain cancer, brain cancer. Yes. Um, you know,

and so just, uh, seeing him, um, go through that, that tragedy and just from, from the outside, how he

was, you know, still doing ministry and, and, and holding strong to Christ in that season was, was

very telling of kind of the calling that he has on, on his life. He, uh, I've, I've, I've heard him say

this, uh, a couple of times on different podcasts and I've heard other people quote him on saying this

on other, other podcasts, but essentially, um, you know, 20% of churches, uh, shutting down, but 30%

of people, uh, are, are going to disconnect from the church, um, you know, as a result of this. And

I've heard him, you know, use strong languages like mathematically it's, it's gone, uh, short of, uh,

an act of God or radical disciple making, you know, we're losing 30% of people out of this

mathematically. And so your, your report here, um, speaks towards that, that church dropout. Um,

you know, and just, I would love to maybe even just open it up here. What, as we're, we're looking

at these church dropouts, what, what are we observing? Um, what, what trends can we do to, to turn the,

the favor? Hey, that radical disciple making is an awesome idea, but what else are we learning

here about these, uh, these dropouts, this 30% that Barna's, that Kinnaman speaking of?

Yeah. Well, that's certainly the question, isn't it? How do we win these people back?

At the end of the day, when all is said and done and the pandemic passes, we're going to have to

win some people back. Um, and, and I think we need to be realistic about that. And, um, I think a lot

of pastors were perhaps short-sighted, even as they were trying to predict when they were going to

reopen. We had lots of people say, oh yeah, it'll be March. Yeah, it'll be April. Um, and my encouragement

would be, let's, let's prepare ourselves for the long game with winning people back, maybe a little

bit better than we did for preparing for reopening. Um, so that's just one little piece there, but

yes, the dropouts, it's an interesting group of people. So how we define dropouts in this journal

is people that were actively connected to a church before COVID and say that they have never attended

a service either in person or digitally during the pandemic. They haven't attended at all. And I think

we need to be realistic and know that a good chunk of those people, they are, um, distancing themselves

physically for health reasons. And many people were not offered a digital solution for their home church

during COVID. I believe it was, um, 22%, if I'm remembering correctly of, of people were not

offered digital solutions. So, yeah, so we, we just need to be realistic. And again, probably a lot of

those are very small churches. Many congregations are so small that they did not have to give up meeting

together in order to observe precautions. Lots, lots of reasons, of course. Um, so there are those

exceptions and I just, I want to acknowledge those exceptions. Elderly people who don't know how to

use technology, um, or, you know, people who they were not offered a digital solution, so on and so

forth. Now let's talk about the rest of the dropouts, the millennials who have totally disengaged,

the Gen Xers, who they and their family and their children have totally disengaged. What are we seeing

here? Well, um, one of our crucial data points that I want to call out is we asked the following

statement, um, do you agree or disagree with this? I am rethinking my faith practices and their role in my

life during this pandemic. And a lot of dropouts agreed with that statement. So what they are asking

themselves is this, is my life really better if I incorporate a faith practice of going to church?

Is my life really better if I incorporate the practice of Bible study? You know, is, is, does that

actually improve my life? And we are at the point when many people, I, I think the statistic was, it's

about one in four of millennials, just in general, like not even the dropouts are rethinking their faith

practices right now. One in four millennials are rethinking their faith practices right now. Um,

and we need to take that statistic with a grain of salt because the question to any pastors listening is

what are you doing with that? Like people are really wrestling right now. What is the value add

of attending a church? Maybe we need to remind our congregants of why being connected to a body of

Christ is so important. Really? How is your life improved by being a Christian in, but not just being a

Christian, but being involved in a faith community? What is the value add there? Um, so that's, that's

really interesting. But I also do want to just suggest, um, that maybe not all hope is lost. We asked the

question, um, do you plan on just returning back to your faith practices when the pandemic is over? And a

lot of, a lot of the dropouts, the majority of the dropouts said, yeah, I'll return. Um, however,

the jury is still out on whether or not they will. Yeah. And I think we need to be,

begin thinking now about what that re-entry is going to look like for these people. It's not just

hop back into the middle of things. What discipleship or shepherding, um, strategies are we going to need

to innovate and dream up to re-engage these people? I mean, we're going to need to teach them to ride

their bicycle all over again. Yeah. There, there, there's a danger. One of the stats that was in

here, and I'm, I'm clicking through the slide deck trying to find that I couldn't, but you would

probably know it. Um, the, where there was larger percent, there was a very large percentage of people

that were, were spiritually feeding themselves without, um, getting, getting connected to the

church body. I forget what the exact phrasing is. Do you remember the specific stat that I'm

referencing? Um, yes, I'm, I'm growing spiritually in ways other than attending church during the

pandemic. Yeah. And that's, um, that's, that can be heavily encouraging, uh, because now I'm beginning

to see multiplication happening if in fact that's what's happening, or if it's, uh, now, you know,

falling away from, from spiritual things just out of loxadaisicalness or, or not. And so like,

to me, that was the, that was the great unknown stat. Like I would love to have asked maybe three

or four qualifying questions afterwards to try to discover, why do you feel that way? What are you

doing, uh, to, to, to, to quantify that just so that we could get a, a gauge on what people are doing.

If, if they're diving into scripture, if they're having these awesome prayer times, if, if they're

learning how to be disciple makers and getting out there and investing in communities and,

and reaching their circle of influence for Christ, that's a, that's awesome. Like we need to

celebrate that victory. Um, and, and maybe that is happening, but I would love to just be able to

unpack that, that one thing and say, Hey, if you're spiritually growing without the church, what,

what, what does that, what does that look like? And what can we learn from you? Cause we may,

we may need some help. Yeah, for sure. I think too, something along those lines, when I,

when I saw that statistic, Jeff was like, okay, well, people are still growing spiritually.

I think my concern though, was, um, are they going to get so entrenched in new habits that they think

that their own spiritual development, like listening to podcasts or, you know, or, um, you're watching

YouTube videos, uh, from the Bible project, which is, they're fantastic. But, but is that,

is that, is that a supplement to the spiritual practice of attending church at the same time

every Sunday? You know what I'm saying? Like, like actually tithing that first day of the week

to the Lord. Um, and I think my concern is Christians are keeping up with, with their spiritual

health as best they can. Great news. But are we sacrificing practices? Cause they're, they are two

different things. And that's, it's, it all comes down to is, is church that one hour on Sunday or is

church? Absolutely. You know, the, the community that, that meets 168 or that's part that's active 168

hours. Yeah. And that's why, that's why a full blown hybrid strategy right now is even more important

because we want to continue to communicate to these people. Your church is an active partner in your

spiritual development. It is not just coming on Sunday. And if the church can remain a consistent

presence when we're talking about spiritual development, not just practices, but spiritual

development, then I think that bridge to get back to quote unquote normal, whatever that means, um,

is, is going to be easier for these dropouts, especially. We got a long road ahead. Um, you know,

it's funny back in March, I remember I was speaking for a conference for American Bible Society or

something like right when this thing hit and, um, and it was, Hey, you know what, could you imagine

if we had two weeks, two weeks where we wouldn't go anywhere and just, could you imagine like how,

what we could make of ourselves if we really just been two weeks on, on our spiritual, on our

spirituality, on delving into scripture on our own. Uh, so that was the thing. And it was funny at the

time, like the, the heads of the conference, they were like, we don't know that we want you to say

the two week thing. Cause you know, what if it's like two days and it's, it's like just the,

and now it's like, you know, we're, we're, I don't know, month seven, eighth in the year,

right. You know, 2021. And we're spiking in different areas and going up and, and I don't

know, I, I think we're going to be doing this for, for a while. And so church embracing that

hybrid, uh, approach in those hybrid environments, the figuring out how to do the physical, figuring

out how to do the digital, figuring out how to get them to work together, uh, is, is going to be so

important for your, you, the church, your church moving forward, because people are not just looking

for a physical experience there. My physical church is, is meeting right now and I'm not attending

my physical church. That doesn't mean that I'm a bad spiritual person. That's not saying anything

about my spiritual walk. It's just saying, I don't feel safe in the building. And so as a result of

that, I'm going to continue, and my family is going to continue to engage in, in digital space. And so,

uh, Savannah, I just want to thank you and, and Barna for, for taking the time to shed some light

on, on what's actually happening there. You know, so often we hear the individual stories, but now to have,

you know, stats to really start to define what this looks like and for us to, um, interpret,

learn from and figure out the next steps is, is, is hugely important. So even just as, as we're landing

the plane here, did any, any clothings, closing thoughts or, or any like crazy stats, something

that I missed that was just a huge surprise for you? Um, crazy stats. I need to think through that

a little bit more. Um, but maybe as, as one closing remark, um, I would encourage any pastors or listeners

today, if you want to unpack these six questions about the future of the hybrid church experience,

I would highly encourage you to get the journal. It's, it's 40 pages long, um, beautifully designed

with lots of charts. You can read it in one sitting. Um, so go to barna.com and you can find that in our

store. Um, but okay, Jeff, one crazy statistic. I, I think, I think for me, and, and I guess this is a bit

of a teaser for the report that we're releasing in January on prayer. I am shocked to see how open

people are to prayer experiences digitally. They find, they find it to be safe, um, to participate

digitally in a prayer experience. They're really interested, especially in the idea of one-on-one

prayer digitally. Um, that's something that a lot of people, even unchristian people are very open to

right now. And so I think maybe a practical takeaway is, hmm, are you incorporating prayer into your

digital strategy? Um, so maybe that's, that's something that we can learn together alongside

you guys in the upcoming months. Cause that seems like a really critical piece of the puzzle that

maybe a lot of people aren't considering. Yeah. I'll, I'll be honest and completely speaking

the truth here. The most in touch that I've been with God in the past six months throughout this COVID

season was a digital prayer experience on zoom with six guys from around the country. Um, it was,

you know, and I'm a, I'm a live production guy. I'm a video producer. And so part of me, when,

when I say that, it's like, okay, the quality standards are ugly. There's gotta be better ways

to make it better, you know? And so like, I start nitpicking on, on, on what it was. And it's,

so yeah, it's not, and part of me wants to say, it's not part of what a digital strategy should be,

but I cannot get away from this fact of, I felt more in touch with God when six guys scattered

across the country, we're going through a two hour prayer experience, exactly which,

which you're describing. And so I think there's, I think that we are just starting to scratch the

surface surface of what's happening by doing our online services. And, and the more that, uh,

Barna, that, that you guys are pulling the thread on some of these other things,

the more that we in Stadia side are kind of championing this, the idea of more than just the,

the experience that we're creating on Sunday. I think this is where we really start to create a,

a church that can exist physically and digitally that, that co-exist in that hybrid environment.

And so Savannah, thanks, thanks for the time for this. Be sure, and I'll put the link in the show

notes. Like I said, uh, it's, uh, Barna.com slash Stadia. We'll get you straight into that. Um,

and that'll be a great place for, for you to access, to, to buy this journal, phenomenal stuff,

uh, up and down throughout it. So Savannah, thank you for the time for, for Savannah. This is, uh,

Jeff with the church digital and Stadia church planning. Thanks, uh, for joining us today and

we'll see you next time here at the pod. Y'all have a good day.