State of Church Tech Results

CHECK OUT THE 2023 STATE OF CHURCH TECH REPORT

Understanding the strategies and mindsets of church leaders helps us at Pushpay better tailor our products and services to best assist you. But those same hard-to-come-by insights are valuable to you as well. Knowing what other influencers in the Church are thinking can help guide your own tech policies into the future.

In that spirit, Pushpay sponsored the ‘2021 State of Church Technology Report’. This comprehensive study captures the priorities, concerns, and near-term expectations of the people most responsible for meeting their church’s needs with technology.

The results come from a wide swath of churches, from all across the country. It paints a complicated picture of the opinions of leaders like yourself from across the faith spectrum. But from those results, we can gain valuable insight into the Church’s current relationship with technology, and where—together—we’ll go from here.

About the Report

This report is derived from a September/October 2021 survey. Nearly two thousand participants responded to 22 separate questions, each probing the how and why behind their church’s relationship with technology.

Notably, every respondent described themselves as a ‘decision maker’ or ‘influencer’ regarding technology purchases within their church. Therefore, these results reflect the views of the leaders who are choosing if, when, and what tech their ministry will adopt.

Churches Are Looking to Upgrade Their Digital Tools

The first major takeaway was simple: Every statistic points toward the idea that church leaders have fully embraced technology, especially in the wake of the pandemic. Just 1% of respondents don’t think tech solutions are important to their church’s mission.

But once you dig into the details of the report, it’s clear that church leaders see their digital futures evolving over time. The tech tools of today are, according to this survey, not the tools of tomorrow.

Church Leaders Have A Skewed Understanding Of Their Tech Relationship

We asked how our respondents felt about their proactiveness regarding adoption of church technologies. They could choose between progressive, responsive, or reluctant.

Later, we asked how often those decision-makers and influencers re-evaluated the tech tools their church was using.

Spoiler alert: The answers didn’t line up.

The Most Important Consideration When Adopting New Tech Is…

This question was presented several different ways, and each time, a pattern emerged: time, in every sense of the word, is the primary concern when adopting new church tech solutions. It even beats cost by a significant margin.

While that revelation is significant enough in and of itself, cross-referencing that data with our other statistics leads to surprising results.

Security Is—And Isn’t—Important

No one is flippant about digital security anymore, and neither are church leaders—to an extent.

We asked, “How important is security and data protection when considering technology purchases for your church?” Then we asked, “To what degree have security and data protection concerns prevented your church from upgrading tools/becoming more digital?”

Similar questions, but they led to radically different—and very telling—answers.

Church Tech Isn’t Going Anywhere

Live streaming is the current barometer. It’s no surprise that many churches embraced digital for services and Masses during the pandemic. What will catch you off guard, however, is how many claim they’ll continue to broadcast once COVID is no longer dominating our lives.

That fact, plus a slew of other responses we received, lead to some pretty critical insights about their church’s ongoing digital revolution.

Together we can better serve your church’s mission through knowledge. So, we’re happy to make our ‘2021 State of Church Technology’ reports available to you completely free.

We’ve prepared three separate summaries: one specifically about Catholic parishes, one focusing on midsized churches, and one all-encompassing report that includes nearly two thousand respondents. You’ll be able to read the details supporting the above takeaways, learn more about our most surprising revelations, and check out our top tips for turning the report’s insights into actionable, positive change in your own church.

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