March 2021 – In September 2020, Barna Group surveyed 1,300 adults currently attending online worship services due to COVID-19 and found that 40% of those virtual churchgoers were willing to invite friends and family to join their online services. Though the perspective of online services seemed to break down some reluctance to extend worship invitations, the numbers were not consistent across all areas of the poll.
When participants were asked in which religious environment they would be more open to inviting friends, acquaintances, and family members, almost two-thirds (64%) responded with in-person church services.
However, 61% of participants said they had been extending the same number of online invitations as they did to in-person services before the pandemic. But congregants whose churches were engaged both personally and digitally before the COVID-19 outbreak made up almost two-thirds of this 61%.
