Your Congregation Is Larger Than You Think

How Churches Can Serve and Steward Digital Worshipers

Digital worship has expanded the reach of local congregations far beyond those physically present on Sunday. Churches can move from simply broadcasting services to intentionally serving digital worshipers while helping them pursue deeper connection, community, and Christlikeness.

• Churches should recognize digital worshipers as people they have a responsibility to serve and steward.
• A proactive digital strategy can create opportunities for pastoral care, discipleship, and meaningful relationships.
• Digital discipleship can serve as a valuable tool while pointing people toward embodied participation in healthy local churches.

By Scott Kenworthy

What would you do if you knew your church would grow by 30 percent this weekend? How about 60 percent? Where might you turn if you had reason to believe it would soon surge by double or more?

I imagine you’d make some significant shifts. Your staff team would scramble as they prepared to welcome guests, connect them within community, and direct them toward spiritual engagement. The elders might break out plans for additional services, campuses, or new staff members. You’d probably call a mentor for advice. You’d certainly polish up your sermon.

Here’s a sobering reality: the data suggests your congregation is already that size or larger. According to Pew Research Center, approximately 27 percent of U.S. adults—over 69 million people—worship online at least once per month and almost half of them do so without ever attending in-person services. This means your church is likely reaching a substantial digital demographic in addition to your gathered attendees.

In a moment, I’ll offer three approaches your church can take when serving and stewarding digital worshipers . . . but first, a backstory. The church I serve stumbled into digital discipleship. When I arrived in 2013, we had a crude livestream set-up, predominantly serving members of our church who were sick or traveling. We made significant technology upgrades in 2019, which positioned us for what soon lay ahead. When Covid hit, we were asked to do an Easter broadcast on a regional ABC affiliate that we’ve now continued for six years, reaching an average of 3,800 households per week, plus another 600+ livestream devices. While online worship numbers increase the risk of attendance inflation, those counts are conservative. We don’t add multipliers. We don’t include Facebook views. We don’t add watches as they accumulate throughout the week. We’re focused on real-time participants. The data we receive from the network shows most of our digital viewers stay with us for more than 45 minutes of the service. Livestream numbers tell a similar story. These aren’t “on-demand” consumers. They are real-time worshipers who have chosen to assemble with our congregation virtually, making our digital attendance about 1.5x our in-person average.

I imagine your story is similar. If so, we each have a responsibility to steward those souls. While our church is far from an expert in this area, I offer you three approaches a church might take when serving digital worshipers, along with a few theological commitments to consider.

Level 1: The Passive Approach

This, by default, is probably the most common approach churches take. By calling it “passive,” I’m not suggesting churches make no effort or investment. If you’re broadcasting in any format, you’ve already invested time, people, and money. But once the technology is in place, it’s tempting to let it run with little or no strategy.

At this level, you verbally acknowledge that you have people joining you online. You welcome them. You may occasionally speak directly to them in the sermon. You probably invite them to join you at church at some point in the future. But otherwise, you treat digital attendees as absentees.

To be fair, genuine fruit can come from this approach. Worshiping online is an easy way for people to check out your church before visiting. The passive approach lets them do so in a low-pressure environment, which is what many people want. In most cases, a passive approach is all you need to stay connected to shut-ins and families from your church who travel frequently because you’re already in touch with them during the week. Digital services allow them to stay connected to what’s taking place on the weekend—they’re likely grateful for the option even if it’s little more than a broadcast. A passive approach also has ways of encouraging members of your community you’ve never met. One of my favorite stories from our TV broadcast was told to me by a young occupational therapist. She stopped me in the lobby one Sunday morning and said, “Every week, on my way to church, I stop by an elderly client’s home. On my first visit, I recognized your voice coming from the next room. My client is a nun, so it surprised me she was worshipping with us. I told her, ‘Owensboro Christian! That’s my church!’ She smiled and said, ‘I watch their service every week. I know they’re not Catholic, but they sure do teach the Bible!’”

Simply providing consistent biblical teaching, the public reading of Scripture, Christ-focused worship, and pastoral prayer benefits people. Yet while good work can happen at this level, it’s generally not transformative.

Level 2: The Proactive Approach

At the proactive level, you seek to develop deeper relationships with your digital audience. You find ways to serve them. One of the simplest ways to do this is by identifying an online host who communicates with digital worshipers during the service.

But to really serve your digital demographic well, you must discern who’s joining you virtually.

• Are they regular attenders who happen to be sick or out of town?
• Are they people preparing to make a visit but checking you out first online?
• Are they people far from God turning to your church for hope and direction?
• Are they shut-ins, nursing home residents, or members of a local prison?
• Are they families of split homes who can’t be with you in-person every weekend?
• Are they former members or students who have moved but still want to stay connected?
• Are they members of other churches who binge as much religious content as they can?

Odds are you won’t be able to serve every niche demographic of your digital community equally. You can, however, target specific groups. Our digital community includes a correctional facility an hour from our city, members of a local women’s prison, nursing homes, and several shut-ins. From among those groups, we’ve been able to conduct pastoral visits, baptize individuals, provide marital counseling, officiate weddings, grow our financial education ministry, offer benevolence, perform funerals, and begin regular correspondence with inmates. None of this would have happened without recognizing our congregation was larger than the people we see on the weekend.

The proactive approach isn’t only about what church staff can do. It’s about amplifying ministry already taking place within your congregation. One of our church members has visited inmates at a local women’s prison for years. When we started broadcasting services, she began sharing the weekend sermon with them. The ladies began watching on Sunday, then later during the week, she’d take her study notes to the jail and they’d all discuss the message together. In this scenario, we added nothing new. We simply furthered the good work Ms. Francis was already doing.

Some churches host online small groups and prayer meetings. Others produce podcasts that engage people through long-form content aimed at cultural analysis and practical application. There are hundreds of ways you can be proactive with your digital demographic.

Level 3: The Purposeful Approach

It will serve everyone well if, eventually, you determine your church’s long-term goals for digital worshipers. Doing so, however, may not be as easy as you think.

One of the reasons digital discipleship proves difficult is that it’s not clear how online engagement fits within certain theological commitments.

For example, with regard to theology, at Owensboro Christian we believe Christ’s incarnation informs ministry practice. Namely, physical proximity is important for showing and sharing God’s love. Jesus “dwelt among us” (John 1:14), therefore we should aim to dwell among those we serve. It’s difficult to truly dwell among people through a screen. So, while at OCC we certainly value our digital demographic, we don’t see online ministry as the end game.

With regard to ecclesiology, we believe the church consists of the assembled saints. Digital worship cannot duplicate all the assembly should be. Biblical community is about contributing as much as receiving. It’s about knowing and being known. It’s about bearing one another’s burdens. You can take steps toward these actions virtually, but it’ll never match what happens face-to-face.

Equally as important, with regard to missiology, we’re convinced that in a digital age people need embodied relationships. This need will likely only intensify with the advent of artificial intelligence. Therefore, digital discipleship may at times prove counterproductive.

You should wrestle through your church’s perspective on these and related matters. Based on your commitments, you can develop goals. I know congregations who have commissioned families to host church services in their home, where they worship with the larger body digitally but function practically as a house church. I’ve heard of other churches who livestream their services in bars or prisons and provide lay elders to pastor those communities. You might launch a new multi-site location near a segment of your digital demographic. Not everyone will be comfortable with these options, but they are examples of tangible goals toward which you can lead digital worshipers.

In view of Hebrews 10:24-25, our purpose is to lead digital worshipers into local, healthy churches. We recognize some will remain online as passive observers. Several will take small but significant steps over time. Still, it’s our responsibility to continue calling people to greater connection, community, and Christlikeness. That’s why about once a quarter, I make a strong push for those in our digital space to commit to finding and participating in a local church, whether ours or another Bible-teaching, Christ-centered congregation. For that is how God made us to grow and how we best encourage others to do the same.

I’ll close with a story. A few years ago, a family who had been hurt while serving at their longtime church began worshiping with us online. They needed some time to breath and recover before feeling ready to walk inside another church building. After several months with us digitally, they decided to join in person although they lived 75 minutes away. They made the drive for two years, worshiping and serving faithfully each weekend. In every respect, they were part of our church family. Then, feeling refreshed and filled with new vision, they felt called to find a church closer to home, take what they had learned, and invest there.

For us, that’s a picture of what online ministry can be. Digital discipleship is more tool than telos. It provides people a transitional space for healing, exploration, and growth. But it’s not the end. You may find a purpose slightly different than ours. But whatever you do, please do something. Because your congregation is already larger than you think.

Author: Scott Kenworthy

Scott Kenworthy has served as the lead pastor of Owensboro (Kentucky) Christian Church since 2013.