Churches Face Challenges in Upgrading to Religion 2.0

Pastor Rick Warren has over 600,000 followers on Twitter. Warren’s Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, California has over 20,000 “likes” on Facebook and a sophisticated website where visitors can check the events calendar, watch streaming video of sermons, and post comments. Warren, however, seems to be the exception rather than the rule. Although a few churches are using social media to connect with their congregants quite effectively, most places of worship have sparse online offerings and few Americans report using technology or social media for religious purposes.

Public Religion Research Institute’s July Religion & Politics Tracking Survey found that only 5% of Americans follow a religious or spiritual leader on Twitter or Facebook, and that only 6% joined a religious or spiritual group on Facebook. Given that successful models of social media integration already exist, what’s stopping most places of worship from upgrading to Religion 2.0?

Churches and other places of worship wishing to leverage social media tools like Facebook and Twitter face two major obstacles: a lack of resources to invest in new technology, at least for most churches, which tend to be relatively small; and low congregant interest in these forms of communication.

Despite the high profile of megachurches like Saddleback, the vast majority of Americans (68%) attend churches of less than 500 people. Fewer than 1-in-10 (9%) Americans who attend at least a few times a year say their congregation includes at least 2,000 people.
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