Congregants Going Online For Information

Roughly 22 percent of Americans have visited a place of worship’s website during the past six months. That includes having visited the website of a church or other place of worship in the past 30 days.

About 13 percent of churchgoers, or 10.4 million people, visited another church’s website in the past 30 days. Those numbers increase to 27 percent and 21 million over six months and 37 percent or 28.7 million in the last year. Among non-churchgoers, 2 percent or 1.6 million Americans visited a church’s website in the past 30 days, 10 percent or 10.6 million visited in the last six months, and 16 percent visited in the last year, which translates to 17.4 million visitors.

The data is from a national survey of 1,011 adults regarding web surfing activities by Grey Matter Research and Consulting in Phoenix, Ariz. The results were broken down into three groups: those who regularly attend that church’s service, those who attend another church’s service, and those who do not regularly attend service at any congregation.

Among the first group, 28 percent — approximately 21.5 million Americans — visited their own congregation’s website in the past 30 days; 44 percent or 34 million visited the site during the past six months, and 57 percent or 44.8 million have visited their congregation’s website during the past year. Some 68 percent of congregants have visited their house of worship’s website while attending services there, and 32 percent either have never visited, or their church does not have a website.

About 13 percent of churchgoers, or 10.4 million people, visited another church’s website in the past 30 days. Those number increase to 27 percent and 21 million over six months and 37 percent or 28.7 million in the last year. Among non-churchgoers, 2 percent or 1.6 million Americans visited a church’s website in the past 30 days, 10 percent or 10.6 million visited in the last six months, and 16 percent visited in the last year, which translates to 17.4 million visitors.

The most common reason cited for visiting a church’s website (43 percent) was checking the service times. Checking the times for other activities such as youth groups, bible study groups and special events came in at 29 percent, and consuming streaming audio and video both were cited by 28 percent of those surveyed.

Other reasons for visiting a church’s website included researching the church’s religious beliefs (22 percent), requesting a prayer (18 percent), downloading a podcast (15 percent), sending a message to the congregation leader (12 percent) and utilizing the congregation’s forum or online bulletin board (5 percent).

Grey Matter found that many churches don’t understand why visitors are going to their websites. The firm randomly checked the websites of 10 churches in Memphis, Tenn., and 10 in Grants Pass, Ore., and found that, although looking up directions is the second most commonly cited reason for visiting a church’s website, about half of those websites did not have that information easily available.

Grey Matter President Ron Sellers also noted that churches need to design their websites in a way that balances the needs of regular attendees and non-congregants. “Church leaders need to evaluate their websites from both of these perspectives, because church website visitors are almost evenly split between those who are already involved in that church and those who are not,” he said.